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Afterburner Climax Panel Reproduction

nnap

nnap

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With the Monkey Ball Panel completed, I had a spare stick from the set to give a shot at Afterburner Climax.

The sticks I got off YAJ are angled. By removing the middle section, I was able to mount the stick correctly. Due to the hole alignment, it sits a bit lower but is still works fine
IMG-9537.jpg


Another panel was needed, so back to Fusion to design a panel that will take a sega analogue stick as the thrust lever
afterburner-panel.png


As I did not want any left/right movement on the thrust lever, I came up with a locking bar that would prevent the stick from moving left and right
lockbar.png


After a couple of prints to get the correct fitment I had this
IMG-9598.jpg


The panel came in and it was time to do a test install
IMG-9676.jpg


Once I booted up Afterburner Climax I had some strange behaviour with stuck buttons and the test menu was not accessible. That was really strange and went away when I unpluged the stick. I suspected the I/O board and got a type 3. No luck there unfortunately, still the same issues. Then I noticed that all the buttons on the stick measured as 'pressed'. So the behaviour of the buttons was wrong for my setup. I was able to fix it by routing the signal from the opposite side of the micro switches
IMG-9696.jpg


That fixed the basic controls but I was not happy with the thrust lever. Back to Fusion we go
throttle.png


Did a couple of iterations to get the height and fitment correct
IMG-9700.jpg


You can still turn the lever a bit but it plays quite well with this setup
IMG-9677.jpg


The stick itself is quite nice as it has 4 separate buttons. I used the trigger for the machine gun, the blue buttons left/right for thte missiles and the grey button in the middle for the climax mode, as I was not able to replicate the original thrust lever where climax is triggered when you push it all the way forward.
 
If you ever would sell one of these, let me know.
ive been looking to buy a galaxy force pcb and play it on my blast.
 
Very nice work.

I avoided getting a 3D printer for years, thinking they were more effort than they were worth, and that I wouldn't have enough use for them.

Then once I got one I discovered what an indispensable tool it is. I'm starting to wonder if a resin printer will prove to be a similar thing ...
 
Psyko-M1 said:
If you ever would sell one of these, let me know.
ive been looking to buy a galaxy force pcb and play it on my blast.
Click to expand...
I am not familiar with the galaxy force stick. If it is your standard pot based analogue stick you should be able to use the gundam stick for that. Finding the Galaxy Force PCB is probably even harder than finding one of these sticks.
 
Aurich said:
Very nice work.

I avoided getting a 3D printer for years, thinking they were more effort than they were worth, and that I wouldn't have enough use for them.

Then once I got one I discovered what an indispensable tool it is. I'm starting to wonder if a resin printer will prove to be a similar thing ...
Click to expand...
I was also sceptical about 3D printers. When I started this project I had zero experience in 3D modeling. It was fun learning the tools. There is something about designing something and then holding it in your hands a couple of hours later.
 
If I remember correcty, the thrust lever had a notch, or a click to activate the Climax mode, how does it work with your panel ?
 
yes, the original panel has a switch at full throttle. On my panel you just hit the little grey button on the stick.
 
Does Afterburner Climax use that kind of analog stick?

The controls on that game felt weird to me when I tried to use my regular analog stick. I couldn't aim at all.

I then tried playing it with one of my positional guns and it seemed to work properly. I know they both use pots for the X and Y axis but the guns don't snap back to center. The X axis is a rotary type like on those Microsoft sidewinder flight sticks. It makes aiming or hold your position easier.

I kept meaning to ask someone what the original cab used because I've never seen one in the wild.
 
The stick base should be the same from what I can see in the manual and the sticks that are on sale. The cab uses the same Opt Amp that is used in Monkeyball but I don't think it is required. When you calibrate the stick correctly it works fine. Same with Monkeyball.
What analogue stick did you use?
 
nnap said:
The stick base should be the same from what I can see in the manual and the sticks that are on sale. The cab uses the same Opt Amp that is used in Monkeyball but I don't think it is required. When you calibrate the stick correctly it works fine. Same with Monkeyball.
What analogue stick did you use?
Click to expand...
I used this one from a Panzer Elite Action cab:



It's a regular 2 axis analog stick.

I guess I just don't like the game if it's not a wrong controls issue. It's the same with the first After Burner arcade. I always found it to have an insanely high difficulty level so my coin didn't last long enough to have any fun.

Maybe I should check out the service menu and see if there's an option to make the controls a little more functional and less all over the place.
 
Bit of a necropost but what joystick is that you're using on the left? you say "sega analogue stick" but i'm struggling to find anything that resembles that or is even analogue in that form factor.
 
tiff_lee said:
Bit of a necropost but what joystick is that you're using on the left? you say "sega analogue stick" but i'm struggling to find anything that resembles that or is even analogue in that form factor.
Click to expand...
That stick can be found on the Sega baseball panels, they don’t come up for sale often.
 
Mirko said:
That stick can be found on the Sega baseball panels, they don’t come up for sale often.
Click to expand...
Ah that explains it, didn't even realise those baseball CPs were a thing.

Anyone know what the normal behaviour for the thrust/throttle lever is on the arcade machine? does it return to centre if you let go or does it just stay where it is?
 
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