More Arcade Buttons

Written by Ean Golden on June 22nd, 2009 21 Comments

The VCI-100 from has inspired a lot of people to modify the simple layout into other forms that fit their particular style of ding. First came the original arcade mod and then many others followed in my footsteps, creating their own interpretations and individual creations. The most adventurous by far has to be this brand new 3 deck VCI-100 mod by Anthony More.

The Case

Instead of just adding arcade buttons Anthony wanted to create an entire third deck which would mean expanding the width of the case to accommodate an extra channel strip.

The Guts

Engineering the third deck meant cutting the existing circuit board and grafting a new one into place to hold the new parts. Those red wires are connecting the new controls to other buttons and knobs that he could afford to lose. So by eliminating a few of the smaller, lesser used buttons and knobs he could make better use of those inputs as a third set of controls.

The Buttons

Low profile Illuminated arcade buttons dont exist on the market so Anthony got super creative and re-used the LEDS from the original VCI-100 buttons to light up his arcades. Here you can see he cut a small hole in the arcade casing, creating a light pipe for the LED to illuminate the body of the button.

The Overlay

Anthony found a local sticker shop in the Netherlands that was willing to print a one off vinyl sticker for his vci-100. The 22mm sticker set him back $70 but worked out quite well.

The Pay-Off

Q. Hey Anthony, great job on the controller!

First of all I like to thank everyone,who contributed to DJTT in articles and forums, especially Ean Golden who triggered me to do my mod. All the ideas and positive words people brought was an inspiration to make my VCI-100 mod reality.

Q. How long did this take and at what cost?

3-4 months of work and aprox. 500 euros.

Q. Why did you decide to undergo this project?

Since the beginning, I was not completely satisfied with the hardware layout of my black vci-100 in combination with my 3 deck style of playing. When Ean made his “SE”, I upgraded my Black VCI (Japan) to firmware 1.3 and loved the possibilities he had created for the VCI-100. That gave me great insight and I decided I wanted a VCI with 3 channel faders for direct control so I have always the same setup everywhere I go and have a vci that fits in a UDG bag.

Q. So what did you decide to do?

This problem kept me thinking for weeks on how to mod my VCI. So first I made a layout and searched for the parts, but found they all are custom made by Vestax. Instead, I ordered potentiometers with almost the same specs, 12 arcade buttons, and 6 momentary push buttons.

Q. How did you make the case?

After creating a paper layout- my neighbor, an industrial designer, made a CAD drawing for me. He measured everything very well from the old vci-housing, in combination with the changes I made to create a new hybrid of the 2. Then the metal shop made a new housing (27,6 cm x 38,5 cm) from aluminum and a custom back-housing from stainless steel.

Q. How did you do the custom overlay?

A designer helped me to understand the basics of Adobe-Illustrator, and from there I experimented with the program and finally succeeded in designing an overlay for my vci. I maintained the vestax logo and added a DJ TechTools logo as an homage.

Q. How has the controller worked out for you?

I played out several times with my AM VCI-100 and until now I haven’t had any problems. If you have any questions about my modifications feel free to ask me in the DJTT forum, and I will try to give you an answer as soon as possible.

“Listen to what’s playing”

Anthony.

Filed under: DIY Project Tutorials, VCI-100 SE / Arcade, and tagged Arcade Buttons, DIY, Modification, Tips, VCI-100 Articles.

http://twoday.weltraumpapst.net weltraumpapst

thanks for the article.. this mod is amazing..

btw. the link doesn’t work..
http://www.myspace.com/bentosan BentoSan

Which link are you refering to ?
Anonymous

[quote comment=""]Which link are you refering to ?[/quote]
I believe he means the link to the sticker shop.
http://www.myspace.com/bentosan BentoSan

Fixed it – thanks guys :)
Anonymous

[quote comment=""]Fixed it – thanks guys :)[/quote]

Awesome Job Anthony!
http://twoday.weltraumpapst.net weltraumpapst

[quote comment=""][quote comment=""]Fixed it – thanks guys :)[/quote]

[/quote]

yeah i meant the sticker shop.. it’s still linking to “http://www.djtechtools.com/wp-admin/www.stickercompany.nl”

..
and Anthony, we want a video!! ;-)
http://www.theneedfortweed.com DJ D-Tweed

[quote comment=""][quote comment=""][quote comment=""]Fixed it – thanks guys :)[/quote]

[/quote]

yeah i meant the sticker shop.. it’s still linking to “http://www.djtechtools.com/wp-admin/www.stickercompany.nl”

..
and Anthony, we want a video!! ;-)[/quote]

Ok so I see all these VCI-100 custom casing and everyone complaining about the shitty casing on the Xponent. When is someone going to come out with an Xponent custom case? I think a lot of people could use that
seeMARTINbreak

okay so he took out some parts to make room for others right?

well what if i wanted to add more buttons and nobs than it already has… how would someone go about doing that?
is it possible to do it and still only use one usb to the computer?

basically i want to have two vci’s in one… yeah i know INSANE
seeMARTINbreak

oh yeah i forgot to give Anthony M big props on this!
this thing is a beast! makes me totally drool man!
i wish i would have gotten into djing way sooner so i could of been in the loop when all these things were just getting started
http://tos.network.in.rs ToS

Great mod, really sleak design and final looks.

MARTIN: You would need to add (inside of the VCI case) a 2 port USB hub, and coneect all extra controls to some USB-midi interface for DIY enthusiasts.
http://www.mikecharles.net/blog/ Mike Charles

This took some major cojones. Who in their right mind takes a perfectly good VCI, cuts it in half, and adds a 3rd channel. Love the bravado. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Vestax should hire Anthony More.
Hooker T

All I have to say is, “EFFIN SICK BUD!”
Fickala Musoterual

should be how Vestax makes the VCI today..2 decks is dated!
Vinicius Hoffmann [Brazil]

Congrats Anthony!
I wish I was a engineer to know how to do something like that.
Vestax should really talk to you, if they had not did that yet hehe.

Congrats to DJTT for all the inputs to Anthony.
DJ Pirate

[quote comment=""]Congrats Anthony!
I wish I was a engineer to know how to do something like that.
Vestax should really talk to you, if they had not did that yet hehe.

Congrats to DJTT for all the inputs to Anthony.[/quote]
[quote comment="19766"]All I have to say is, “EFFIN SICK BUD!”[/quote]

Yo! Ditto! Major kudos dude :)
f0tif0

really nice and creative respecta!!!!!
seeMARTINbreak

so what if i literally use two vci’s in one..
has anyone ever hooked up two at a time?
were there any problems or was it hard to program the two?

also as another option i was thinking of mod the korg nano pad but i read an old article where Ean mentioned
“digital connections- not the kind you can just re-solder to a new control”
so does anyone know if the nano pads have the kind of connections you can just re-solder new buttons onto???
http://ifnotwhynot.me Lukas

[quote comment=""]so what if i literally use two vci’s in one..
has anyone ever hooked up two at a time?
were there any problems or was it hard to program the two?

also as another option i was thinking of mod the korg nano pad but i read an old article where Ean mentioned
“digital connections- not the kind you can just re-solder to a new control”
so does anyone know if the nano pads have the kind of connections you can just re-solder new buttons onto???[/quote]

its been done. the main issue when using the 1.3 firmware is that you cannot select a different channel for the second vci, so you have to do the remapping in software.
seeMARTINbreak

oh okay, THANKS!
does anyone have any info on the nano pads and modifying them??
http://www.indydesigns.net djhipnotikk

awesome mod man. really pro stuff there. probably wouldn’t be too difficult to make a 4 deck mod after seeing this. shorten the fader length a little to allow a second row of arcade buttons, then split the length of the middle fader into 2 faders, or just expand the casing to have 4 side-by-side faders. hmm.. :P
http://www.djtechtools.com/2011/01/06/out-of-the-arcade/ DJ TechTools | Out of the Arcade

[...] We’ve written previously about this awesome modification that Anthony More made to his VCI-100, turning it into a 3-deck controller. Read all about one-of-a-kind controller and Anthony’s DIY process in our interview from 2009. [...]