I Fixed EVERYTHING WRONG WITH THE KNEE NEO!

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]All right, the knee lever Neo.

[00:00:03]Yeah, man, this lever is a really weird one if you look at it from a value proposition.

[00:00:07]For how much it costs, you don't really get a great quality lever.

[00:00:11]Performance-wise, it's really good, but this thing costs like $85 and it's just really cheaply put together. If you watch my tier list video, you know exactly what I mean, but if you didn't, I'll just break it down really quick.

[00:00:22]The issues I have with this lever are one, it's $85, and for $85, what you're getting is a lever that is supposed to be premium quality, but it really isn't.

[00:00:32]One of the things that you'll notice immediately when you use a knee Neo is that in neutral, not even like the whole shaft assembly, like the grommet and the bobbin, but like just the shaft sitting inside the bobbin, it just wiggles.

[00:00:45]Like in neutral, it feels really cheap.

[00:00:48]It's really annoying too when you're playing.

[00:00:50]You really notice this. You think it's not like a lot of movement, but it it kind of is. Something else that you'll notice immediately is that this uses a shaft cover. So, instead of using a solid 12 mm shaft, this uses a 9 mm shaft, steel shaft on the inside, and then this plastic cover has an OD of 12 mm. That's for them to achieve their 12 mm throw that they wanted for this lever, but it feels really cheap, and when you're playing, it like smacks around and it's really loud. It's really irritating. And because they put that shaft cover on there, they actually don't have the ability to put flats on the shaft for a wrench to make removing your top easy. You actually have to go through the bottom. You have to open up your arcade stick, and if you don't have a clam shell, it's really annoying. You have to unscrew everything, all the plates on the bottom, but you have to go through the bottom of the lever for a flathead screwdriver in here, hold it down, and then twist your top off.

[00:01:36]That's really annoying, especially for a lever that costs $85, and the crazy Dong Pal Pro, which costs exactly as much as this, doesn't have that issue. They have flats on it on their shaft because they use a solid 12 mm shaft instead of a cheap plastic cover. Another issue I have with this lever is that there's a whole bunch of shaft spin.

[00:01:53]There's nothing we can really do about it. I put a O-ring between my bobbin and my actuator here. Uh that helps with the shaft spin a little bit, but really uh it's not too noticeable.

[00:02:05]For a premium lever, I would have liked the choice between spin or no spin or at least drastically reduced shaft spin.

[00:02:12]Now, some people like shaft spin, and I don't really mind it too much, but it's a little bit annoying in the N e Neo.

[00:02:16]It's a little excessive. Another issue with the N e Neo is um its size. It's really bulky. Uh it's hard to fit in a lot of cases. People think it's because of this uh gate right here. That has something to do with it, but really it's because this actuator is so long and the shaft is so long. You'll actually notice it sticks out past the gate. So, the gate is an issue, but the biggest issue is just how long this actuator and the bottom portion of the shaft is.

[00:02:41]Like, the N e Neo is like a cool lever.

[00:02:43]Um I don't think it's worth $85. And you know, it performs well, but if you remove N e Neo's branding, it doesn't really have anything going for it that would justify the cost. I don't know if N e Neo's branding alone justifies uh the lever to be $85. So, I decided that I wanted to modify this N e Neo and turn it into like an actually good quality lever.

[00:03:04]And uh you guessed it, I used ASI parts.

[00:03:07]So, these are the parts that I got to modify the Neo. Um I wanted to keep a very similar design philosophy. Uh I liked the throw. The throw on the N e Neo feels pretty good, and the corners on it also feel pretty good. So, what I did was I got a 12 mm shaft uh to match the 12 mm shaft that comes stock with the Neo.

[00:03:26]Well, 12 mm shaft. I got this 16 mm bushing. Uh this is just the size that ASI recommends if you use a 12 mm shaft.

[00:03:35]I got a 14.5 mm core. Um I'm going to talk about this a little bit more in a second.

[00:03:42]And I got this 16.25 mm actuator. The stock N e Neo comes with a 16.1 mm actuator. Um I tried both a 16 mm and the 16.25, and I just found that uh the 16.25 just felt better for me.

[00:03:57]Corners are a little bit easier on this, too, so that's why I went with this one.

[00:04:01]And then this is just the regular spring that comes with the core.

[00:04:03]So, if you're an experienced Korean lever enthusiast, you probably already noticed that I am using a Fanta style bobbin on a Crown style grommet.

[00:04:11]The opening on this Crown grommet is around 15 mm and this actuator is 14.5 mm right in here.

[00:04:20]Right in there.

[00:04:22]That means there's about 250 microns or 0.25 mm of radio clearance between the bobbin and the grommet. One of the concerns with that is that because there's that gap, that radio clearance, the grommet isn't going to feel good when you're playing. It's going to feel mushy.

[00:04:36]Um it just, you know, just overall won't feel right. But actually, the lever feels pretty good and I'll explain why.

[00:04:41]So, this is the original knee Neo bobbin. So, not only is this diameter on the inside right here a little bit bigger, I think this is like 15.5 or 15.6 mm, something like that. The distance between this face right here on the inside and this face right here is about 1 to 1.1 mm greater than on this Fanta bobbin, this ASI bobbin.

[00:05:04]Which means when I put this bobbin into this grommet, these surfaces right here are actually squeezing down on the grommet like this. And the thing about these silicone rubber grommets is that they are incompressible materials.

[00:05:17]That means when you squeeze them, they don't lose any volume.

[00:05:21]They just change their shape.

[00:05:23]They'll bulge out.

[00:05:25]And when they do that, they just displace that volume instead of actually physically getting smaller.

[00:05:30]It's a little more clear to see on this lighter tension grommet. See, like when I squeeze it, it just bulges.

[00:05:38]So, when this bobbin goes inside this grommet right here, and these two surfaces squeeze down on the face of the grommet, that radio clearance between the bobbin and the grommet actually gets eaten up by the displaced volume of the grommet.

[00:05:50]So, like when I squeeze this right here, you can actually see the inner circle getting smaller.

[00:06:01]That extra squeezing force from the bobbin keeps the grommet from feeling all mushy and neutral. And actually, when I'm playing with it, uh the neutral zone feels really tight. I actually like the way it feels. So, even though there's a difference between the diameter of this circle here on the grommet and [music] this center of the bobbin right here, uh because these faces are squeezing down on the grommet, uh that difference basically goes away. And it actually makes the lever feel really stiff in neutral, which I like. All right, so I'm going to get to you assembling it, and then I'll talk about my experiences using it.

[00:06:58]All right, and here it is.

[00:06:59]Yeah, man, it looks really good with this aluminum shaft and this uh reflective cover. So, I actually have a hollow top ASI capsule that I could put on here. Um and I've tried it for a few days, and it actually feels a lot better with this hollow capsule versus the original uh knee neo capsule.

[00:07:13]Aesthetically, uh the original capsule looks a lot better, so I've kind of just been rocking that. But yeah, like I said, I've been using this for a little while now, about a week and a half or 2 weeks of actual in-game play time, and uh it's been really good. Uh it's a lot more snappy than stock uh with that original shaft because this aluminum shaft is lighter, so it reduces the moment of of inertia for the entire shaft assembly, uh which allows it to return to neutral even faster. And that's why the hollow ASI capsule top feels better on this versus the stock knee neo capsule is cuz it's just lighter. I was actually going to go in depth with how that works, uh but I feel like that could be a topic for another video. So, when I'm using this lever in game, I've mainly been playing Brian on it. One of the reasons why this lever is like really good for Brian is because my quarter circle motions on this thing are super short. Like, that's really all I got to do to hit a clean quarter circle. So, when I'm back dashing and moving around, like, and I want to hit like a hatchet kick or a quarter circle back one, I'm just doing this really quick.

[00:08:09]It's really nice. Even on my Black Panther, the throw on that's pretty short, and the quarter circles feel pretty good on it, but sometimes, even when I think I'm doing like a clean quarter circle back input, I'll just drop the quarter circle like that. He won't do a swayback, but with this, like, I don't even need to think about it. I'm just doing this right here, and I'm getting like a clean swayback.

[00:08:30]So, quarter circles on this are really, really good. With that bigger actuator, corners are even easier to find. Corners were never hard to find on the original Neogeo in stock form, but this extra 1.5 mm of actuator helped with corners by a noticeable amount, if I'm being honest. It's been really, really fun to use.

[00:08:49]I've been using this, like I said, for 2 weeks, and normally, when I'm playing on different levers, I'm like, "Yeah, you know, this is pretty good, but I think I'm going to go back to my Black Panther."

[00:08:57]But, when I'm using this, I'm like, "No, this is really fun.

[00:09:01]I'm having a lot of fun with this. My inputs are clean. My execution is really good, and I don't even think about going back to my Black Panther."

[00:09:07]Yeah, this is just really good with this ASI shaft assembly.

[00:09:11]And you know, I like I said, I've been using this with Brian, but you know, you can do your classic Mishima stuff on on it, too.

[00:09:21]Yeah!

[00:09:23]Stop it.

[00:09:24]Do it. Do it. Do it.

[00:09:26]Do it.

[00:09:27]Do it.

[00:09:28]Do it.

[00:09:29]Do it.

[00:09:31]Do it.

[00:09:33]Stop it.

[00:09:37]Stop it.

[00:09:39]Do it.

[00:09:44]>> Um it works pretty good for me, Shima.

[00:09:46]But these ASI parts have really fixed like all my gripes with the original Neogeo. There's not like excessive shaft spin. You know, you can sit there and spin it, but it's not anything too crazy. It actually feels like my Black Mamba. I have this hole right here where I can put an Allen wrench through and I can easily take my top on and off. I don't have to open up my arcade stick.

[00:10:02]The quality of the shaft is a lot better. It's not some cheap plastic shaft cover. It's just a full metal shaft and it doesn't clank around when you're playing.

[00:10:11]Also, this reflective dust cover is really nice. Even though this is kind of like a simple thing this is one of my favorite things about ASI shaft assemblies is the the reflective dust covers. And what I mentioned earlier about that bobbin compressing down on the grommet where those two surfaces are roughly 1 mm closer on the ASI bobbin versus the Neogeo bobbin, uh that tightens up the neutral a lot. Like in the stock Neogeo, uh neutral was really wobbly. Not just because the shaft, you know, was moving, but it it also just felt loose.

[00:10:40]But with this ASI bobbin squeezing down on the grommet just as is in rest state uh the neutral feels really tight. I like this a lot. Feels almost like my Black Mamba if I'm being honest.

[00:10:51]Another thing about this build is that because this shaft assembly and the actuator physically sit lower in the lever itself, you can actually remove this gate right here and uh give yourself like an extra 6-ish mm of clearance if you wanted to use this in a more low profile stick. Um the negative of that is this gate is effectively useless. But the corners in this actually are so easy to find that I don't even notice that I'm not using the gate at all. But overall, I'm really happy with the way this turned out. Uh it performs really well. Aesthetically, it looks really good. All my major gripes I've had with the Neogeo in stock form are gone.

[00:11:27]Um so, you know, for the low low cost of two Neogeos, you can have a really good Neogeo. And yeah, that's where the major drawback from this build comes from.

[00:11:35]It's just really expensive cuz you have to buy a knee nail, which is like $85.

[00:11:38]And then you have to buy the ASI parts, which themselves aren't that bad, but with shipping it ended up being around 70-ish dollars. So, yeah, basically the cost of two of these levers to get one solid lever. But, you know, that's the hobby. You know, you're doing all this for fun. So, I'm really happy with the way it turned out. And yeah, thanks for watching the video. Uh I have a few more reviews coming.

[00:11:58]Um I have the Golden Lever Pro ordered.

[00:12:00]So, that'll probably show up two or three more weeks. I'm not sure.

[00:12:04]I have this Master Lever M1 Mini I still have to review. Um I'm waiting on the ASI Golden Lever Pro grommets that they just released to come out. I'm going to put one of those grommets in here to try to match the feel of my Black Panther because this uh M1 Mini is essentially a Black Panther with um a reduced switch spacing. Um Black Panther is 16 and 1/2 mm. This is 15.5.

[00:12:26]So, basically I'm trying to mimic the feel of my Black Panther as much as I can in this the just kind of see how it compares if it is like a one-to-one um except for the switch spacing. And then I also have a video uh more of a conceptual video along the way.

[00:12:40]Uh I'm still working on that. Uh I'm writing the script for it.

[00:12:43]>> [music] >> I got all the math done for it, but it's essentially just uh how corners work in levers. Uh basically the boundary angles between you know, when you go from a pure cardinal to once you hit that boundary for the corner.

[00:12:57]Uh it's been really fun to think about.

[00:12:59]Uh I get to use the math that I learned in school, I guess. Uh but yeah, those are the videos coming. Um probably another couple weeks before they come out.