There’s a new way to fix a broken joint in the Saturn twin stick controller thanks to a fan-made design for 3D printers.
Shadowmask, known more in the Saturn community for his work on English translation patches, designed the replacement joint and sent the file to Malenko, who uploaded it to his Thingiverse account where anyone can download it.
It started with a discussion more than a month ago in the SHIRO! Discord server‘s tech support channel about twin sticks when Shadowmask mentioned that one of the twin stick controllers he owns had a cracked joint at the base of one of the sticks.
“So this part sits inside the spring assembly, and when you tilt the stick, it seems to hold a lot of the spring tension,” Shadowmask said. “It seems like a common point of failure considering it’s a) plastic and b) under a lot of spring tension.”
That’s when Malenko offered to 3D print a replacement if Shadowmask scanned it. Instead, Shadowmask said he’d model a new one.
“Model it, I’ll print it, and try it out in my sticks,” Malenko said. “If it’s good [I’ll] throw the model up on thingiverse.”
Just a few hours later, Shadowmask delivered a design modeled in FreeCAD and Malenko printed it out that evening.
“This was fun, let’s make more stuff,” Shadowmask said.
Malenko printed out several joints and sent them to Shadowmask, who posted last week about how it went installing them into his twin stick.
“Thanks Malenko for printing some replacement twin stick joints for me. They seem to fit alright!” Shadowmask said. “I might make some adjustments so there’s less trim required, but overall it’s a snug fit that should hold up to the spring tension that will be on it.”
Now twin stick controllers being sold as “junk” for having broken joints can be bought at a discount and fixed for the price of a small 3D printed part.
One mystery remains, however: “I’d love to know if it’s the same part inside a Dreamcast twin stick,” Malenko said.
This story originally appeared on Sega Saturn SHIRO!