Arcade1up Star Wars ALAN-1 Yoke MOD!

RetroRalph·video·8m 4s·analyzed·Oct 24, 2019

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.023

TL;DR

RetroRalph mods Arcade1Up Star Wars cabinet with original arcade flight yoke.

Summary

RetroRalph demonstrates a custom mod installing an original Arcade arcade flight yoke into an Arcade1Up Star Wars cabinet. He praises Arcade1Up's reproduction yoke for its build quality, aluminum gears, and responsive clicky triggers while acknowledging the modification is complex and not for casual users. The video serves as a proof-of-concept showing the feasibility of the swap, with a detailed how-to tutorial promised for a future video.

Key Claims

The Arcade1Up flight yoke reproduction is spot-on accurate to the original arcade yoke with improvements including aluminum gears (vs. plastic originals) and clicky micro switches on triggers.
high confidence · RetroRalph directly examined and compared both yokes in the video, demonstrating build quality and mechanical upgrades.
The original arcade flight yoke used plastic gears that broke down frequently, while the Arcade1Up reproduction upgraded to aluminum for durability.
high confidence · RetroRalph explained the gear system improvements and showed the aluminum gearing mechanism on camera.
Installing the original yoke into the Arcade1Up cabinet requires splicing encoder board connections and is not recommended for casual users.
high confidence · RetroRalph demonstrated the wiring complexity, cautioned it's 'not for the faint of heart,' and warned about potential board damage when removing glued connections.
Removing glued connections on the Arcade1Up encoder board can damage the pins and should be done with a heat gun to soften the adhesive first.
high confidence · RetroRalph showed evidence of broken pins when removing the volume connection and provided this specific caution.
The Arcade1Up flight yoke is priced at $350, down from an original MSRP of $499.
high confidence · RetroRalph stated the current and original pricing directly in the video.

Notable Quotes

“The Arcade1Up Flight Yoke feels like sh**, but the Arcade1Up is legit. I would upgrade the yoke for you, baby, because I'm retro round.”
RetroRalph (Jon)@ 0:08 — Humorous hook that sets up the paradoxical theme: mocking the stock yoke while ultimately praising Arcade1Up's reproduction quality.
“I'm actually shocked that they could, at this price point, reproduce this in such a way that it felt the way it does.”
RetroRalph (Jon)@ 0:50 — Highlights genuine surprise at the quality-to-price ratio of Arcade1Up's yoke reproduction.
“The original did not have these clicky micro switches. I really like it. I think it gives it a great feel.”
RetroRalph (Jon)@ 3:04 — Identifies specific Arcade1Up improvement over the original arcade hardware.
“If you look on the encoder board when I took out the volume, it actually broke the pins right off the board. So keep in mind if you're going to do this, they've glued these connections down so much that if you go to remove them it can actually damage the board.”
RetroRalph (Jon)@ 5:44 — Critical safety/technical warning for anyone attempting this mod; identifies a specific design pitfall.
“This isn't for the faint of heart.”
RetroRalph (Jon)@ 5:16 — Recurring caution emphasizing the complexity and risk level of the modification.

Entities

RetroRalphpersonArcade1Upcompany AtaricompanyMark KimpersonStar Wars ALAN-1productArcade Flight Yoke (Original)productArcade1Up Flight Yoke (Reproduction)product

Signals

?
community_signal: RetroRalph creating follow-up educational content (promised detailed how-to tutorial) based on proof-of-concept mod demonstration.
high · RetroRalph explicitly states 'We will have a subsequent video of how to wire this all up' and notes current video is proof-of-concept only.
?
product_strategy: Arcade1Up flight yoke features aluminum gears and clicky micro switches as improvements over original plastic gears that were prone to failure.
high · RetroRalph directly compared and demonstrated both gearing systems and trigger mechanisms on camera, noting the original plastic gears 'used to break down quite often.'
?
technology_signal: Arcade1Up successfully reproduced vintage arcade hardware with modern material improvements while maintaining mechanical accuracy and feel.
high · RetroRalph expressed surprise at achieving authentic reproduction quality at the $350 price point with tangible upgrades over the original design.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.024

0:00

Hey guys, welcome back. In this episode, we're going to talk about the Arcade 1-Up Flight Yoke. But before we get started, I wrote a little song.

0:08

The Arcade 1-Up Flight Yoke feels like sh**, but the Allen one is legit. I would upgrade the yoke for you, baby, because I'm retro round.

0:30

All right, all right, all right. Before you all get upset, this yoke actually is really good. And I got to give props to 1UP. They did an awesome job. It's a really authentic looking reproduction and it feels pretty good. I mean, I'm actually shocked that they could, at this price point, reproduce this in such a way that it felt the way it does. Now, I will say that time will tell how this thing stands the test of time, but in my limited time with it, it felt good, it played good, it didn't really lose calibration, and if it did, there's a way to actually correct that in the menu. So, props to 1UP for producing this. So, why are we even talking about this? Because I've never been able to keep anything stock my whole life, whether it was cars, video games, you know, you name it, something in my house, I'm always striving to improve things. And so I remember playing this game in the arcade and the flight yoke was just so solid. It was solid metal. So anyways, there's a company out there called Allen One and they produce a reproduction of the original arcade yoke that was used on this Atari cabinet. And the reproduction is spot on, but they also made some improvements. The gear system in the actual stock one used to be a plastic material. They've made it aluminum. So the gears in the back are aluminum. them not only that they've also improved on the micro switches that are used in the button so if you if you notice on the flight yoke it not very clicky if you go over to the allen 1 it all solid metal and the buttons I don know if you can hear that but the buttons are really really clicky and responsive I love that. So how did I do this? Well, the challenge for me was, and keep in mind this is a proof of concept, is I wanted to see if I could do it without modifying the stock one up at all, meaning using their encoder boards, using their, you know, all of the boards that would have run this actual yoke. So it did take some trial and error, and this is not an educational video as to how to do it yourself. I'm going to do that later, but I just wanted to show you what was possible, and I made some mistakes along the way. So I'll give you a quick overview of it, and then I'll give you some of my final thoughts on sort of this flight yoke versus the Arcade 1-Up 1. All right, at first glance, you'll notice this thing is just beautiful. The solid build construction and the fluid movements is just sort of a testament to the fact that this reproduction is very accurate to the original. You will notice that the triggers, they're clicky. So this was an upgrade that the Allen 1 team made on this particular yoke. The original did not have these clicky micro switches. I really like it. I think it gives it a great feel. The graphics are really great. It's 100% reproduction as far as I can tell. Like I said, the fluidity of the movement is really, really nice. And it uses this gearing system on the back that they've upgraded to aluminum, which I'll show you in a second. The other thing you'll notice is that you'll notice around the edges, there's gaps here. That was because this is really a prototype for me. And I got so excited doing this that I did it at night in the dark. So I actually routed too much of the wood out, which is fine. I'm going to actually have one of my buddies reproduce the panel for me. I was just so eager to get this video out and to show people that this was possible that I kind of got a little ahead of myself and didn't care. Kim was not very happy with me because I was doing this last night. I'm sure my neighbors were not happy with me either because I was in the backyard using a bunch of power tools. But anyways as you can see the thing is really really beautiful I going to go around the back so you can see the gearing system that gives you the fluid right and left movements Okay as you can see these are the gears in the back and as I move the yoke from right to left you will notice that fluid movement that that provides Now, the original one actually used to break down quite often because it was made of plastic. This one was made to stand the test of time, so this one was really made to make improvements upon the original yoke that was used in the arcade. Okay guys, excuse the mess, but this is actually the encoder board that everything plugs into. So this is the stock arcade 1UP encoder board. The connections on the right are for your triggers, your top triggers and your bottom triggers. It took me a little while to figure out which ones were top and bottom so I could translate that to the Allen 1 connections, but it wasn't too hard to do. The one on the left is actually going to a separate encoder board down here. And again, excuse the mess, this was just for proof of concept purposes, so I have not cleaned up any of these wires. This was just during the testing phases. Half of this goes to right and left and the other half goes to up and down. So you'll see, I believe that was up and down and I believe the black and red was right to left. So you just have to basically splice the connections on the Allen one. So you basically splice the wire harness and then you splice it into this. So keep in mind, if you're going to do this, this isn't for the faint of heart. As you can see, I'm still messing with a bunch of connections, but it basically all works. actually it doesn't basically all work it all works I've got these little connections because I wanted to rapidly be able to change wires if I needed to so that's why these are all here what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna clean up this rat's nest and get it all nice but I just wanted to see you know it took a little bit of trial and error to get this all right I haven't even gotten to the point where I put the power button back on I will say one really negative thing about this whole thing is if you look on the encoder board when I took out the volume, it actually broke the pins right off the board. So keep in mind if you're going to do this, they've glued these connections down so much that if you go to remove them it can actually damage the board So what I would suggest is if you going to remove these connections use a heat gun heat up the glue and then remove the connections Otherwise you could potentially run the risk of damaging the board All right, I'm gonna show you some gameplay and then we'll wrap things up. All right, let's check it out and see how this thing feels.