Has anyone built their own controller?

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Pokebis
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Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by Pokebis » Fri Jul 06, 2012 6:43 pm

I kind of want to since I'm getting sick of the USKOC buttons (they're require so much force to press) and the turntable is stiff as a bitch so scratch charts are nearly impossible. I only got to play AC style briefly during my visit in Taiwan, but I kind of think I could start playing faster songs if I had some nice sanwas to press easier. Plus, I like the flashy stuff.
DAOs are really expensive, and I don't really have much money to throw around right now, so I'm wondering if anyone here has just built their own controllers before.
I don't really want to disassemble the USKOC either since it's the only one I have right now, but if I get another I might.

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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by MonMotha » Fri Jul 06, 2012 9:44 pm

It's not terribly hard. Most people hack up a KOC for the encoder wheel and electronics. You can use the KOC as a template or just mod the heck out of it and install real buttons. Note that the real buttons aren't cheap - they're about $25 EACH plus you've got to get them here from Japan (or I think there's a disty in Europe that stocks them). They're somewhat cheaper without the lights and smoke filter, if you don't care about that. There are knock-offs available from various places that are decent, but not great, and much cheaper. The spring force can be hard to match, though, if you care about arcade accuracy. Basically anything will beat a KOC, though.

There are popular mods to make the turntable spin more freely involving wax paper and similar. I dunno how well they actually hold up long term, but they must be nice in the short term at least if people bother. You may be able to free up the turntable by just loosening it a bit.

I kinda doubt you can build a good ASC for much less than a Dao without quite a bit of work and/or scavenging some used parts.
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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by Pokebis » Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:46 pm

Are you sure? Their shipping prices are ridiculous and cost over $80, so even a vanilla FP7 with NO special addons (which apparently doesn't include the sanwa and omrom microswitches) it will cost nearly $300. If I add the switches nearly $400.
I noticed Desktop Arcade sells their controllers for much cheaper, but I am unsure how quality would compare.

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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by Ho » Mon Jul 09, 2012 1:52 pm

Pokebis wrote:Their shipping prices are ridiculous and cost over $80
You should note that they're shipping from China. I assure you that this is not a cheap thing to do for that size/weight item.

If you do the math on the parts that MonMotha quoted, you'll see that just 7 of the official buttons is already $175. Plus you'll have to add shipping and almost inevitable deputy fees to get those parts here from Japan. So, figure at least $200 just for the buttons alone

Then you will still need a turntable from somewhere, you might want start and select buttons (these can be a lot chepaer), you'd need to make a box to put it all in, and oh yeah...the electronics to make it actually work. Sure, you can scavenge these off a KOC, but then figure the cost of the KOC into your project cost.

$300 for a complete controller is actually not a terrible deal. This is just expensive stuff you're dealing with here.

For reference, here are the parts:
white button w/ LED: http://item.rakuten.co.jp/sanwadenshi/ilumb_099/
smoked button w/ LED: http://item.rakuten.co.jp/sanwadenshi/ilumb_097/
(MonMotha's $25 estimate per button was just about spot on. Total cost for all 7 buttons is 14007 yen, or about $175 dollars. But don't forget that is without shipping to the US or deputy fees.)

white button w/o LED: http://item.rakuten.co.jp/sanwadenshi/ilumb_100/
smoked button w/o LED: http://item.rakuten.co.jp/sanwadenshi/ilumb_098/
(Total cost for all 7 buttons is 8127 yen without the LEDs, or about $102--once again without shipping or deputy fees.)

Note: At current exchange rates, 2000 yen is about $25.

I've played on a Desktop Arcade controller a few times. They play fine. But they're not exactly cheap either as they start at $250 plus $25 shipping. If your $80 shipping quote from DJdao is correct, the lowest end DA and dao are within $5 of each other after shipping and probably comparable or possibly even less than trying to build your own. (Not to say that building it yourself wouldn't be rewarding in its own right.)
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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by Amp Divorax » Mon Jul 09, 2012 3:34 pm

As a Desktop Arcade owner for both Pop'N and IIDX I can testify to the long term quality of their products. I will also mention that if you don't wish to take that steep of a hit on a new controller, the new Muse-On conrollers for DJ Max Trilogy now have Playstation 2 support built in and have been touting various improvements to their design. (This can be found on http://www.play-asia.com/DJ_Max_Trilogy ... -4wzb.html and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxPt_E83Z-E has footage of it in use with on of the many simulators available.)
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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by Merk » Tue Jul 10, 2012 11:48 am

I've never had a problem on a USKOC! In my experience, any arcade controller is going to require more force to press the buttons so I have my doubts that getting new controller is going to make you hit the buttons faster. I've never had a problem with scratching either, having a loose as shit turntable is going to make you less accurate since it's harder to shift the turntable's direction back and forth. I know you play custom songs and whatnot, but there honestly aren't too many official charts that require you to scratch excessively fast and you're going to have trouble with them no matter which controller you play on.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is, much like Air Jordans and basketball, getting a new fancy controller won't make you better. If you value having a more authentic experience and think that $300+ is worth it then by all means go for a Dao.
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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by Merk » Mon Oct 13, 2014 11:27 am

Does anyone have experience with a DJ Dao? I really want to try playing on one before I commit to buying one because throwing $500 at some random sketchy dude in China for some video game controller that may or may not work well is not my idea of fun.
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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by Ho » Mon Oct 20, 2014 9:53 am

I've played on Daos a couple times. I don't have enough experience with them to have any more than a first impression, but they seemed solid and pretty arcade-like. I've never known anyone to complain about them.
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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by ImuyumI » Mon Oct 20, 2014 10:00 am

I've played on Daos in Atlanta earlier this year and they were pretty solid, in my opinion. It made me want to steal the controllers.

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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by Merk » Fri Nov 14, 2014 8:51 pm

Welp I pulled the trigger on a DAO, let's hope I didn't just waste $400!
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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by ImuyumI » Mon Nov 17, 2014 12:48 pm

Is that a solo or a duo? I'd probably save up and get the duo controller if I was gonna bank on a big arcade style.

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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by Merk » Mon Nov 17, 2014 1:35 pm

I went with a single, specifically the "FPS" model which has all the functionality and feel of their "real style" controllers and the added benefit of being able to flip the keys between 1P and 2P side and the ability to adjust the turntable distance from KOC distance to arcade distance. The FPS ended up being $390 with shipping while if I can gone with the single player version of their real style controller it would have been $650.

The real style arcade doubles deck is about $1,000 after shipping and I realllllly didn't want to gamble that kind of money on whether or not DJ Dao controllers suck balls or not. If everything works out for me then I suppose I can see myself getting a doubles deck in the future and then selling my DAO on here for a couple hundo.
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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by Merk » Fri Nov 21, 2014 9:15 am

I got notice that my Dao shipped today! I spent 20, November getting my Beet machine up and running and I've finally, after all these years, got a machine that can run Beet and not be horribly laggy or crash after I play a song.
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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by Merk » Mon Nov 24, 2014 9:41 pm

Dao arrived this evening and God damn I am bad at arcade distance turntable!
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Re: Has anyone built their own controller?

Post by Pokebis » Tue Nov 25, 2014 1:22 am

How are the buttons? What switches did you get?

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