GRS Arcade Flight Stick

Fro the price you cannot beat this joystick for the AtGames Legend Ultimate Arcade. Install is straight forward. Did take a bit to figure out how the joystick "locks" into the base (there is a spring-loaded retainer that gets pushed in and rotated to hold two pins on the stick)Looks great and functions well. Ther is an additional button on the top of the joystick that you can hook to a secondary button. I do play the Tron games, so I have the trigger as button "A" and the top hat button as button "B". Your A and B button will still work on the ALU.Took a bit for the stick to come, but for the price it was worth it

tl;dr - it's a fine looking replica at around 3/4 scale, and by far the best I've found. Clickier sound than original, and the restrictor isn't quite right for light cycles.First, for anyone having trouble with "not centering" - you have to lock the handle in place. Someone already posted a video, but on the UNDERSIDE, push the plastic ring up and rotate 90 degrees, which will lock the handle in place and it will center just fine (it's not designed to be used in the unlocked position).Second, the included wiring harnesses are for retrofitting into an ATGames cabinet. If you're using it for any other purpose, well, you should expect to be on your own. There's a ground pin, and one pin for each switch - just wire them up to a USB encoder or picade or whatever. If you don't know how to do that, then maybe you should tackle a simpler project. This is not advertised as being a plug-and-play USB controller, nor an arcade or JAMMA replacement, so it's not really fair to down-rate it because your specific use case isn't covered in the (admittedly cryptic) manual.Really the only complaint I can lodge is that it doesn't -quite- replicate the behavior of a real Tron stick in the corners. An arcade Tron is mechanically engineered so that the corners are hard (but not impossible!) to get into - if you're playing the light cycles on an original cab, it's not easy to accidentally land in the corner unless you force it. The circle restrictor on this joystick helps, but honestly I don't know how you can replicate the exact behavior without significant engineering (beyond a restrictor plate). I've had some success with mappings on an Ultimarc ultrastik, but then I don't get this great reproduction handle... Pick your poison.

This joystick looks very nice, and I had hoped to use it to replace the two Arcade1Up (A1U) grips on my new TRON arcade game that both broke after very little use. If you compare the A1U joysticks to either an original Bally/Midway TRON joystick, or the GRS TRON joystick (I have all three at the moment), the reason for these A1U joystick failures is obvious. The metal shaft on the A1U joystick mechanism extends upwards into just the bottom inch or so of its two plastic grip halves, and the molded plastic of the A1U grip halves is very thin and somewhat soft. Cyclic loading and fatigue take their toll, and sooner or later, as many A1U TRON owners have discovered, the joystick grip WILL BREAK just above the top of the metal shaft - with surprisingly little force applied. It's not a question of "if", but "when". A classic example of defective product design through making something too cheaply. Really, how much more would it have cost to do it better/right?The GRS TRON joystick solves this problem by using a high-quality (acrylic?) plastic resin that's stronger than the plastic of the A1U joystick, and the molded plastic halves of the GRS grip are much thicker than the A1U grip. (Kudos to Glen for being the "first-est with the most-est" in the replacement TRON joystick market!) Though the bending forces on the GRS joystick grip still have to pass through the plastic of the grips, the GRS plastic grip halves seem thick enough, and are made with what may be a harder/stronger resin and appear to be designed to withstand these kinds of loads.For reference, the original Bally/Midway TRON joystick solved this problem by having the metal shaft extend several inches farther up into the grip itself (almost to the top of your palm), so that the forces applied to the joystick would be transferred quite directly to the metal shaft, just passing in compression through a 1/4" layer of plastic, which is good.Since you are not required to use the USB adapter for the GRS TRON joystick (which is available separately), connecting to the 5-pin connector (GND, U, D, L, R) on its circuit board provides access to the four microswitches that control motion, just like the A1U joystick. This would be easy enough to wire up, and the trigger and built-in blue LED lights seemed like a natural match for my A1U TRON game. I had already watched the Glenn's Retro Show YouTube video on installing a GRS joystick in an A1U cabinet before purchasing the GRS joystick, and although I was going to have to add a momentary pushbutton switch for the "shield" control in Discs of TRON, this would be easy.Unfortunately, I have rather large hands, and my right hand doesn't fit the grip of this GRS joystick. (See photo of GRS joystick in my hand.)Putting a tape measure on the distance between the top of the trigger space (the top of where your index finger would be), and the top of the swell at the base of the grip (where the bottom edge of your pinky knuckle would be), there is a significant difference in size between the GRS joystick grip and both the Arcade1UP and the original Bally/Midway TRON joystick grips.The Arcade1Up and Bally/Midway original grips are both about 4.0", when measuring along the curve of the grip, as described above. The GRS grip is closer to 3.25" when measured this way. Since my palm measures about 4" across the flesh of my hand at the knuckles (see second photo), the GRS grip is just too small/short for my hands, unless I hold the grip with just a thumb and three fingers, or wrap my pinky around the swell at the base of the grip, which is uncomfortable and awkward. (Sigh.)My advice: If you have large hands, measure the distance across your palm at the knuckles. If it's much more than 3.25 inches, think twice before purchasing this GRS joystick. It would be fine for kids, and looks correctly proportioned to the scaled-down A1U cabinet, but may be too small for grown-up kids like myself who still like to play video games.Sadly, I will immediately be returning this joystick/grip for a refund. (Sigh.)Aside from the size mismatch problem, the GRS TRON joystick looks like a nice, well-made unit, even if it lacks a "shield" button for Discs of TRON.

The handle, trigger, and base feel very solid and appear to be very well made, plastic doesn't feel cheap.The original Midway sticks (which I own several and have rebuilt in the past) that this is based off of was very large and bulky on the bottom, because it went into a dedicated cabinet, and also used leaf switches.While I do prefer leaf switches, this has a switch mechanism that is very similar to Sanwa JLF or Seimitsu sticks and has a nice clicky feel to it.The LEDs are a nice touch but a little bright for my taste they are attenuated to use a 5V connectionThe included bubble decal is a nice bonus and looks great.My favorite thing about this stick besides it's performance is the inclusion of the extra gates and they are easy to swap out on the fly which makes this stick very versatile.I'm using this with my own encoder that I purchased previously, while it was nice that one was included with a wire harness, I don't personally need it.I only have 1 small complaint and that is I wish there was maybe 1 or 2 more buttons on the handle for Discs of Tron, but the handle can be easily modded.Overall I highly recommend this if you love the original Tron arcade game and want a good experience playing it when accompanied by a good spinner. The price is a bargain for what is included. It's also great for games that had similar controls.