Out of the Pack - A CX-40 Micro Switch Upgrade

RSS Bot · July 2, 2015

I wanted to try replacing the spring contact switches with micro switches in the CX-40 Joystick from the first time I read about it. The height of the switch seemed to be of great concern. It had to be below 2.5mm and the pins on the nylon stick insert had to be sanded down for proper spacing. I was searching Amazon to find a micro switch when I came across a “4 x 4 x 1.5mm SMD Momentary Twist Tactile Micro Switch DC 12V 0.2A”. I was hoping that with a thinner switch the pins would not need sanding. As it turned out shortening the pegs was still required.

These switches were smaller than the original spring contacts. I’m not use to working with SMD parts so by the 5^th switch I figured out how to solder them to the circuit board. Once the switches were attached to the board the pins were sanded down to about 4.9mm as measured from the top of the ring to the bottom of the pins.

Then I noted that the clips for the cord were loose and decided to solder the wire to the connections.

In a perfect world that would have been end of the story but I found another bad cord. A bad wire at the plug. It was replaced with another cord but when pushing it into the slot for the cord the plastic broke. The solution was to drill two small holes in the base for a wire to hold it in place.

There were 30 switches for about $4.50. That should be enough for 5 more joysticks. I can hardly wait for the burns on my fingers to heal before starting the next one.