null1024 null1024In the previous article, I talked about building a cardboard box controller for Sound Voltex. I ended up building a pretty garbage one thanks to the extremely cheap buttons I bought, even if it was miles better than playing on keyboard. In the intervening few days, I've overhauled it completely into a much better one. It's still cardboard, but I decided to make it out of a bigger box for stability during play and I took dramatically more care while building it.
I'm now using 100% Sanwa brand 30mm buttons (they were like $25 for 8 on Amazon -- didn't get to pick the colors for each, so I went with all white). They feel much better to play on. Sanwa makes 40mm buttons that aren't that expensive, and if I could get them without waiting for international shipping, I would have used those. The official arcade SDVX buttons are 60mm square, but they're also very expensive.
I also took more care with wiring them up since I bought a pack of 0.110 quick disconnects (also on Amazon, can be found for like $4 for 25, the Conext Link QDVF-110B25 is what I got). I was having issues with the connection shorting out due to my lazy unsoldered hackjob on the previous controller, but the quick disconnects have completely solved that problem.
I'm still using the same dumb rotary encoders (they were $10 for 10 with knobs) -- but if you can find two good encoders without a detent, go for that instead. You really want something that spins smoothly if you can find it, and you want fairly large knobs. My biggest gripe with Sound Voltex is the way it handles the lasers, and bad encoders/knobs simply compound the issue. The other improvements I've made to the controller help a lot, but it is on occasion, a bit unpleasant to play with my current encoder setup.
Since I'm using a headered Pi Pico (it also came with a very short USB cable), I spent $12 on it. You can do a lot better than that if you're willing to solder on your own headers or solder wires directly to the board, but having a header did make the wiring much, much easier, and nothing is soldered in my controller.
To wire up everything, I used spare Dupont wires I had laying around, but a fresh pack of 120 assorted wires will set you back $10. I ripped off the male ends on some of the male-female connectors, and replaced them with the crimp-on quick disconnects. Very easy.
The final price for the unit ends up being something like $61, and that's if you had absolutely none of the parts lying around beyond a cardboard box. You would still need a wire stripper (unless you're very willing to use your teeth) and maybe some tape to hold a few things down (the rotary encoders are not soldered on my unit, there are female-female Dupont wires attached to the pins, and taped down so they don't come off, lol), but you're looking at less than half the price of any of the other options for an SDVX controller. I do have Prime, so shipping wasn't factored in, but just being able to order everything from one storefront keeps things cheap even then.
If there's one thing I'd still change, apart from the rotary encoders... I definitely wish I could get the 40mm buttons. Sanwa makes them, and they aren't too expensive ($3-5 per unit before shipping), but they're much harder to come by just because they're just not used as often as 30mm or 24mm buttons, both of which are extremely common fightstick parts. If I went for that, I'd need to import them myself and pay international shipping and wait for them to arrive.
The most ideal setup would be the proper buttons used in a real SDVX cabinet, but the correct buttons are like 2000JPY/unit for the top four buttons (60x60 square), and like 1000JPY/unit for the bottom two FX buttons (50x33, same size used in Beatmania IIDX), and I'd need to either import them myself (so, shipping cost) or deal with inflated pricing locally. It gets very expensive to use the right parts, and if I'm spending that much, I'm not building the controller out of cardboard, and I'm probably not even going to bother with a DIY option.
Now that I have a better controller, my scores and enjoyment went up quite a lot. It was genuinely fairly cheap and easy to put together, too. The buttons were the most expensive part, but they're also the most important. I do definitely wish I had better rotary encoders, but just being mounted in the larger box has given me way more stability so I don't drop my chain as much; no more turning too slowly because I'm trying to keep the unit from moving around. I've been having an absolute blast, and I hope these two posts about SDVX inspire more people to play.
Building custom controllers has been really fun too, although now I'm desperately wishing I had a way to get laser-cut parts so I could make it out something other than cardboard. I'd kill for a laser cutter at home, but I have neither the money nor the space.