this year evo was hype enough that it got me to finally buy the parts for an arcade stick which, because I can't do just one hobby at a time, I have decided to design a printable enclosure for myself while I wait for the parts to show up
an interesting design problem here is that there's only about 1.8mm of clearance under the lip of sanwa OBSF buttons which I don't think a 1.8mm printed plastic top plate is gonna hold up well to button mashing, so I decided to go through and add strengthening ribs in between each button to hopefully help. time will tell if it actually works
incredibly indebted to chastetiddy's fightstick guide and slagcoin for design info
I really want to see a fight stick that is 1" 2" or less deep that is made out of basically multiple stacked sheets of MDF or something similar, and the insides routed out with just enough space to fit the components. So it's basically, a solid chunk of wood with cutouts for the components rather than a hollow box with components mounted in it. This would make it rigid but also should, in theory, reduce noise a lot since it's not basically a big drum.
The downside is that it's harder to build, you need a router and need to know how to use it, getting any side ports for a connector or extra buttons would be tricky, particularly if you used multiple 1/2" or 3/4" thick MDF sheets to build it. You could also use a solid chunk of wood, I never got that far.
I also wanted to try combining it with a size that was more akin to the picture above, basically not using a lot extra width and leaving a nominal amount of wrist space instead of making some oversized box.
Personally, when I still had some interest in trying to learn fighting games, I was also interested in doing all of this with a "reverse hitbox" design. All buttons, but directionals on the right instead of the left because I grew up playing games with arrow keys on my right hand. That being said, this design would be a lot easier for a buttons only layout as you don't need to putz with getting the stick mounted. Can make it a wee bit slimmer too.
While I'm getting all of these ideas out into the wild: Fight stick made out of solid wood and finished like an electric guitar. Laminate and LOTS of paint and clearcoat layers. Durable and beautiful.
