Day Chuu - The Shopping List

Tools:

$10 - Soldering Iron + Solder
$70 - Jigsaw + Fine tooth blades (for metal or plastics)
Free- Drill + Drill bits + 1 in Hole Saw
Free - C - Clamps
$10 - Hot glue gun + Hot glue

Sub-Total $90

Materials

$5 - Pine shelving wood
$3 - Hardboard
$13 - Acrylic Sheet (0.080 in)
$8 - Frosted Glass Spray
$5 - Matte Black Spray Paint
$5 - Con-Tact paper
$8 - Aluminium Knobs

Sub-Total $50

Electronics

$1 ea - 12 ppr Mechanical Encoders (No detents) 25mm shaft x2
$1 ea - 24 ppr Mechanical Encoders (No detents) 25mm shaft x2
22 c ea - Blue LEDs x20
22c ea - Red LEDs x5
60c ea - 10kohms Resistors x10
65c ea - TIP31C Transistor x 3
$4 ea - 3.5mm Audio cable x1
$25 ea - Arduino Leonardo x1

Sub-Total $ 42


Push Buttons Buttons:

$7 - 44mm Square buttons x4
$8 - 23.4mm x 33.0mm Rectangular buttons x2
$7 - 25mm Small Square button x1

Cool thing was, they came with Cherry Switches. After some testing, I also figured out that the springs are 150g, with 50g switches; pretty close to the 100g 50g arcade standard.

Sub-Total $50

Total: $232
Total without tools: $142 (not bad)

Day wot? - The Thought Bubble

What I want:

Buttons light up when pressed
Acrylic/Felt top
Sound reactive LED's
LED lit acrylic signage like effect

To start, what I did was download the files with the properly scaled arcade controller from this guy's blog (CTRL + F the link to find the password). It's an interesting read, and a pretty easy way to get around an Arduino micro controller if you're tight on budget and have an old mouse and controller (or a keyboard works as well) lying around.

Since the files when put together are scaled for 60mm buttons, I used Photoshop to scale the entire controller down to 44mm buttons (as those were the size I wanted to buy). Scaling with Photoshop isn't all that difficult. After scaling to proper sizes, I created the template design for what I wanted to sand blast as my design for the acrylic signage effect:

Not too shabby for about 10 minutes messing around in Photoshop

So I have the "vision" of how I want my controller to work... now how exactly am I going to make it? Dunno.

Pre-build Checklist:

What measurements:
-Length/Height of the frame
-Length/Height of components
-Size of the panel/scaling the controller
-Size of buttons
-Size of holes that need to be drilled

How to's:
-How to build a wooden box
-How to cut acrylic panels
-How to drill acrylic panels
-How to program an Adruino
-How to electric prototype and... wire things
-How to solder

(Basically how to do everything)

What Exactly is SDVX

SDVX or Sound Voltex is a Japanese rhythm game developed by Konami. There has been two iterations so far, Sound Voltex BOOTH, and Sound Voltex II -Infinite Infection-. There has been a third Sound Voltex announced, but release date is currently unknown. The third iteration is to be named "Gravity Wars". Yes

"Gravity Wars"

lol.

With that out of the way, why do you need a controller? Well, everything can be played with keyboard except for the two knobs dubbed VOL - L and VOL - R, you turn them and it makes whooshing effect noises, other wise Sound Voltex is pretty much the standard beat mania key masher.

Here's a video for reference

No that's not me.

Why do I want a controller? Well. Back in July I had a trip to Japan, since I'm a dork, I went to the arcades, which were surprisingly full compared to the 99% empty ones in Canada (where I live). As an avid rhythm gamer I obviously went to the rhythm gaming section; and lo and behind, a SDVX arcade box. Just for context I probably spent around $50 CAD that day just on that machine... great use of vacation time. Anyhow, now that I am back in Canada, there is no way for you to play the game* other than the emulator K-Shoot Mania, which basically is the exact same thing, just less flashy.

The thing is, you can either A. Play with 2 mice as the knobs, or B. Make a controller to emulate the analog controls.

Obviously, I am going with B. All in or nothing right?