Though clicking away on your fightstick is an activity treasured by many, others around you may not be so appreciative of it. Fightsticks tend to be noisy due to the large amount of moving parts they contain, and it's very seldom that a quiet variant of your favorite model is sold off the shelf.
However, there is a solution: silencing pads. Gone are the days of irritating your roommates because you kept them up at night playing ranked, and gone are the days of your opponent at your monthly being able to use your button strikes as audio cues. Let's take a look at the product:
These are the Sanwa/Seimitsu 30mm pushbutton silencing pads. They are intended for use on Sanwa and Seimitsu pushbuttons specifically. While you can use them on 30mm pushbuttons from other manufacturers, some modification may be required to do so. Today we will cover how to install them in your standard Sanwa OBSF-30.
WHAT'S NEEDED
- The proper tools to open your fightstick (in my case it is a 3mm hex key)
- Strong fingers
- A small flathead screwdriver
- 30mm silencers (available here)
Today we are going to use a Mad Catz TE1 that customer Amber G. has loaned us for this demonstration. Special thanks to her for volunteering it! So, bring your fightstick into your (hopefully clean-ish) workspace:
And then begin disassembling it to gain access to the inside of the control panel.
Once you have removed the necessary parts to get inside of your fightstick, lift the control panel to expose the wiring and underside of the pushbuttons.
READ ME! It is very important here to either A) take pictures of your current wiring routes or B) do each pushbutton one by one, including unplugging the wires and plugging them back in. You do not want to run the incorrect wires to the incorrect buttons, as it won't damage anything, but will cause you quite the headache in game. Also, do not use an excessive amount of force to remove pushbuttons that are not screw-type. Be careful to not break your locking tabs!
Now that we have that cautionary bit of advice out of the way, start by unplugging both leads to the first pushbutton. Once you have done this, you can depress the fastening tab on either side of the button and start working the pushbutton out of its hole. I typically do one side at a time as it feels easiest.
Once the pushbutton has been removed from the control panel, you can move on to the next step: removing the plunger. Take note of how the plunger is secured inside the bucket with two smaller tabs sitting in the side cavities.
Using your small flathead, gently coerce the small security tabs inward, working the plunger out of the bucket. Again, it is easiest to do this one side at a time. A little bit of force may be needed, but not a great deal, so be careful.
Now that the plunger has been removed from the bucket, set the plunger aside. Grab one of your silencer pads and round it up with the bucket and plunger.
Put the silencer pad in the bucket, taking care to not fold or bind it up. It should lay perfectly flat against the floor of the bucket. Take care to see that the ears of the pad seat in the slots on the bucket, as well.
With the pad in the bucket, reinsert the plunger. You will have to squeeze the security tabs of the plunger together a little bit to seat it in the bucket.
Now you have successfully installed your first silencer pad! Go ahead and reinsert it into the open hole in the control panel, making sure to not forget to reconnect the wires.
The installation procedure is the same for the remainder of your pushbuttons. Soon you will be on your way to near-silent gaming! If pushbuttons haven't made you stealthy enough, please consider taking a look at the Sanwa JLF silent joysticks. No one will ever hear you coming!
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