Wico Controller Pots

[tz101]

Anyone know where to buy new pots for the 5200 Wico Controller. I have two of them, but the directional control is almost non-functional. I took them apart, and even disassembled the pots, cleaned them, and reassembled. Directions are still not responding other than "left" on one of the two sticks. The other stick has no directional control at all.

 

I have heard great things about the durability of Wico joysticks because of their leaf switch construction,but that is only on the 2600/C64 controllers. Unfortunately, they went with analog potentiometers on the 5200 controllers.

 

These pots are smaller than the ones in the 5200 stock controllers, so I don't know if standard Radio Shack ones will fit.

 

Any advice would help.

Edited July 31, 2010 by tz101

[atariksi]

Anyone know where to buy new pots for the 5200 Wico Controller. I have two of them, but the directional control is almost non-functional. I took them apart, and even disassembled the pots, cleaned them, and reassembled. Directions are still not responding other than "left" on one of the two sticks. The other stick has no directional control at all.

 

I have heard great things about the durability of Wico joysticks because of their leaf switch construction,but that is only on the 2600/C64 controllers. Unfortunately, they went with analog potentiometers on the 5200 controllers.

 

These pots are smaller than the ones in the 5200 stock controllers, so I don't know if standard Radio Shack ones will fit.

 

Any advice would help.

 

I have had similar issues with a couple of my Wicos. Wico pots failure is much higher than A5200 Pots.

[bohoki]

Anyone know where to buy new pots for the 5200 Wico Controller. I have two of them, but the directional control is almost non-functional. I took them apart, and even disassembled the pots, cleaned them, and reassembled. Directions are still not responding other than "left" on one of the two sticks. The other stick has no directional control at all.

 

I have heard great things about the durability of Wico joysticks because of their leaf switch construction,but that is only on the 2600/C64 controllers. Unfortunately, they went with analog potentiometers on the 5200 controllers.

 

These pots are smaller than the ones in the 5200 stock controllers, so I don't know if standard Radio Shack ones will fit.

 

Any advice would help.

 

I have had similar issues with a couple of my Wicos. Wico pots failure is much higher than A5200 Pots.

 

 

i am familiar with the issue it seemes the blue square pots are almost propriatary to the wico

 

i was able to get semi good results using suplimental resistors just try to get the center position 240k left and up at 0-20k and right and down at 500-600k

 

one i was working on was so bizzare it had one of the blue pots and the other was a round one the round pot only went to 400 k so it didnt trigger down in several games

 

even my best wico has noticable jitter in the true analog games

 

a multimeter set to mega ohms is a must

 

your skill sounds like you know what you are doing just verify your resistances at center

 

and get testing with missile command

 

 

the closest i found was this and its audio taper (not linear) and it's cost is about as much as a wico stick

http://www.beyondeleven.com/Bourns-500K-Solid-Shaft-Audio-Taper-Potentiometer-p/bourns-500k-audio-taper-pot.htm

Edited July 31, 2010 by bohoki

[atariksi]

Anyone know where to buy new pots for the 5200 Wico Controller. I have two of them, but the directional control is almost non-functional. I took them apart, and even disassembled the pots, cleaned them, and reassembled. Directions are still not responding other than "left" on one of the two sticks. The other stick has no directional control at all.

 

I have heard great things about the durability of Wico joysticks because of their leaf switch construction,but that is only on the 2600/C64 controllers. Unfortunately, they went with analog potentiometers on the 5200 controllers.

 

These pots are smaller than the ones in the 5200 stock controllers, so I don't know if standard Radio Shack ones will fit.

 

Any advice would help.

 

I have had similar issues with a couple of my Wicos. Wico pots failure is much higher than A5200 Pots.

 

 

i am familiar with the issue it seemes the blue square pots are almost propriatary to the wico

 

i was able to get semi good results using suplimental resistors just try to get the center position 240k left and up at 0-20k and right and down at 500-600k

 

one i was working on was so bizzare it had one of the blue pots and the other was a round one the round pot only went to 400 k so it didnt trigger down in several games

 

even my best wico has noticable jitter in the true analog games

 

a multimeter set to mega ohms is a must

 

your skill sounds like you know what you are doing just verify your resistances at center

 

and get testing with missile command

 

 

the closest i found was this and its audio taper (not linear) and it's cost is about as much as a wico stick

http://www.beyondeleven.com/Bourns-500K-Solid-Shaft-Audio-Taper-Potentiometer-p/bourns-500k-audio-taper-pot.htm

 

That looks too expensive for a single pot; maybe they have a better rate for buying a bunch. Other solution can be to make it so that POT behaves as left/right/center so that it can be used for games that only use the 8-directions rather than the analogicity.

[bohoki]

if you are dealing with 2 wico joysticks i would say pick out the best 2 from the 4 and make one good stick and "other" stick

[tz101]

I went to Radio Shack and bought four 1 mega ohm pots, since they had only one 500 kilo ohm pot and it had an undersized shaft. I am going to wire these up and test the results.

 

They are same diameter (24 mm) on the body and same diameter on the shaft (6 mm), so should be a good fit into the controller housing. Only thing is that the slider x and y adjustment switches will no longer work. All I have to do is make sure the shafts are centered properly before securing the pots into place.

 

If they work good, I will also have to cut off the overly long shaft and grind a half flat on it as well. Not too much trouble if it brings success.

[82atari5200]

I'm having the same trouble with mine. Everybody talks a bunch of crap about the stock controllers and how great the wico are. Both of my wico don't work and the keypad was broken from the factory. I managed to get the keypad working but the little red butt plugs won't work.

[tz101]

Update:

 

I soldered the Radio Shack potentiometers into place and plugged in Missile Command. The result was great. Full left, right, upward, and downward movement control of the Missile Command cursor. I am now using my Dremel to grind the flats on the aluminum shafts, basically fitting everything up to the Wico controller case. Hopefully, I will end up with two awesome controllers for my 5200.

[+Mitch]

Bournes is the company that made the original pots, unfortunately they discontinued the pots that are used in the 5200 Wico sticks. I contacted them a few years ago and they didn't have any more of them.

 

Mitch

[tz101]

I got the pots to fit into the Wico controller casing, but all I get with Missile Command is a square area of cursor movement on the right side of the screen. There is the full range of up, down, left, right and diagonal movement within that square area (approximately 1/4 of the overall screen area in width and 1/4 of the overall screen area in height), but it does not allow me to move the cursor over the entire screen.

 

It seems that the original Wico pots did not use their full range of rotational movement to reach the furthest edges of the screen, butt these Radio Shack ones do.

 

Does anyone know why this is, and how to remedy it?

[tz101]

Bournes is the company that made the original pots, unfortunately they discontinued the pots that are used in the 5200 Wico sticks. I contacted them a few years ago and they didn't have any more of them.

 

Mitch

 

Not quite true. Take a look at this: Bournes 500k Potentimeter

 

Kind of pricey, though...

[atariksi]

Bournes is the company that made the original pots, unfortunately they discontinued the pots that are used in the 5200 Wico sticks. I contacted them a few years ago and they didn't have any more of them.

 

Mitch

 

Not quite true. Take a look at this: Bournes 500k Potentimeter

 

Kind of pricey, though...

 

That's not only expensive, but it's been those blue plastic ones that I have seen go bad over time more so than the other metal type also found in Wico sticks.

[tz101]

Bournes is the company that made the original pots, unfortunately they discontinued the pots that are used in the 5200 Wico sticks. I contacted them a few years ago and they didn't have any more of them.

 

Mitch

 

Not quite true. Take a look at this: Bournes 500k Potentimeter

 

Kind of pricey, though...

 

That's not only expensive, but it's been those blue plastic ones that I have seen go bad over time more so than the other metal type also found in Wico sticks.

 

Could you post a pic of the metal type? Maybe I could find those for sale more easily, and possibly cheaper than these.

[bohoki]

 

Could you post a pic of the metal type? Maybe I could find those for sale more easily, and possibly cheaper than these.

 

 

the metal ones are just the standard round pots we all know and love except wico has a new black molded calibration backer as opposed to the white one for the blue ones that match up with the little red nub on the calibration sliders

[+Mitch]

Bournes is the company that made the original pots, unfortunately they discontinued the pots that are used in the 5200 Wico sticks. I contacted them a few years ago and they didn't have any more of them.

 

Mitch

 

Not quite true. Take a look at this: Bournes 500k Potentimeter

 

Kind of pricey, though...

 

That's not the pot that's used in the 5200 Wico stick. Bournes does still make pots just not the specific one we want.

 

Mitch

[tz101]

y, but these would work as direct replacements, no modding of the casing required.

 

I did find some other Bournes 500k pots for around the $13 range. About half the price of my those in my other post, but still pricier than I would like.

[+Mitch]

y, but these would work as direct replacements, no modding of the casing required.

 

I did find some other Bournes 500k pots for around the $13 range. About half the price of my those in my other post, but still pricier than I would like.

 

It's close but I don't think it's an exact match. Feel free to prove me wrong however.

 

Mitch

[kynrek]

I know this is a necro post but I am needing to replace my wico 5200 pots. Did anyone ever find a workable replacement?

 

Would these work?

 

http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=91A1A-B24-D23Lvirtualkey65210000virtualkey652-91A1A-B24-D23L

Edited September 22, 2015 by kynrek

[kynrek]

I ended up ordering these: http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=P092N-FC20B500Kvirtualkey57700000virtualkey858-P092NFC20B500KHopefully they will work the shaft shape length and diameter appears correct, they are also 500k ohms and liner taper like the originals. The only question is if the base will physically fit.

[imstarryeyed]

It will be interesting to see how your experiment goes, this has been a problem for many for a long time and would be great to get a working solution. Good luck.

[Rob Mitchell]

Update please?