Teardown of a Sanwa style arcade joystick

A classic arcade style joystick that has many other applications for position control.
This one brazenly states that it's a Sanwa copy. It is available with a wide range of knob colours and a couple of shapes too. The knob itself is 35mm diameter with an M6 threaded insert, so may be useful for adding a touch of colour to existing machinery.

The PCB has four standard microswitches and can be mounted in four different directions. The clear plastic retainer plate that is available in other movement restricting options, also has pins that do support the microswitches when it's clipped on, reducing the stresses on the solder connections.

The circlip was very tricky to remove due to the lack of space around it. With very flat tip long nose pliers and by pulling down the plunger, it may be possible to grip the back. But otherwise you would need to push it off, which is tricky with a spring loaded rotating shaft. Not that you should ever need to remove it.

Here's a typical AliExpress listing:-
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006881757851.html
Noting that other listings will appear on the page too for more colour and shape options. So you can have a grab hold of a big pink knob if you wish.
The cost is pleasingly low, because these are mass produced items for the arcade industry, for use in video games and cranes.

If buying from AliExpress, I recommend using PayPal as a security buffer - because otherwise they keep all your card details on record for making instant purchases, and based on how bad their website is, I wouldn't trust them with that data.


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