A quick question about my official KI TE2 stick. Is any regular maintenance recommended? Or replacing parts? I don’t mean for modification purposes, but from a performance standpoint.
Up until now I only clean or dust off the outside but I have never did any maintenance of parts inside the stick. If you have any recommendation, please share. Thanks!
The joystick will occasionally need to be lubricated… very, very occasionally. Thankfully it’s easy to tell where the grease was applied once you disassemble the stick (which is nowhere near as scary as it sounds). The name of the part, if I am not mistaken, is the “pivot base”.
Beyond that, you may need to replace a button now and then if one gives out on you. If you can’t find the exact replacement button, and don’t feel like switching color/brand, you would most likely have to replace the microswitch in the button itself as that’s the only component to my knowledge that there is to wear out (unless the button is sticky/stuck or some other weird ailment).
If it’s working (you don’t notice button or joystick direction drops), you don’t need to do anything.
If you notice a button is dropping on you, replacing it is easy. They’re about $2-3 each, maybe even less if you buy in bulk (never hurts to have a few spare buttons around). The joystick is a bit more expensive at around $10 I think, but still very reasonable. Replacing them in Madcatz TE products is super easy. You just need a screwdriver to take the faceplate off, and it’s literally a snap-out, snap-in job. Would take you 10 minutes at most and requires no fancy knowledge.
I agree; aside from modding (if you desired to do such a thing), I see no reason to muck about with things until signs of trouble appear.
It sure is nice and tidy of @BoJima404 to clean dust out of the stick though 
Thanks. @Marbledecker @Infilament a Noob question: I am spending some time in Japan and was thinking to buy some Japanese spare buttons and joystick. Do all arcade stick buttons have the same size? Was thinking maybe to try out some Hori parts. I can get Madcatz easily but just curious if other manufacturer parts would fit. Only if you know ( buttons are cheap so it won’t hurt me if I mess up;))
Most fightsticks have 30mm face buttons (except the start/back buttons which are usually 24mm). I know for sure that the 8 face buttons on the TE2 are 30mm Sanwa buttons, but any 30mm snap-in button should fit, so should you decide to grab a Semitsu or Hori Kuro button, you should be fine.
@Marbledecker Speaking of that, does that answer also apply to the Hori RAP PRO V KAI? I just bought it and it would be nice to know that should any buttons or the stick fail on me I can just replace them.
Yessir, those are 30mm button slots as well! As a matter of fact, I am getting ready to replace the buttons in my Hori RAP at some point soon! Not because the Kuro buttons are bad (they’re 100% decent), but because I wanted a change of color and I really like the feeling of Sanwa and Semitsu buttons.