It's not that I don't want to help people lol I just don't have time

Could you show the the button prinouts download link ?, i'm planning making arcade controller myself, it's really helpful, thanks !

Hello, I'm currently in the process of designing and building myself a controller similar to yours and Cyberkevin's. I was curious what website you ordered your buttons from, as there seem to be a few variations of the 100mm and 60mm domed buttons out there and wasn't sure how different the quality would be between them. I'm also curious if 14cm was the actual spacing between buttons on an actual arcade cabinet, as they seem closer together from screenshots I've seen.

If you could also share the button printouts for people out there trying to build a controller, that would be awesome and appreciated. Good work on your build!

@Semani
Check this link, it can help : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U25aJmV3dCQ

i bought 100mm dome buttons from ebay
http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-x-White-Clasic-100MM-Round-LED-Light-arcade-push-button-for-Popn-Music-MAME-/261561182099?hash=item3ce642e793

and the encoder board that supports LED light from ebay :
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Zero-Delay-LED-USB-Encoder-PC-to-5Pin-Joystick-For-MAME-Raspberry-Pi-RetroPie-/262342641551

I looked through his PDF file and his listed dimensions in autoCAD actually immensely for trying to design my own layout. Thanks for that.

As for buttons, I found some quality 100mm buttons at a decent price that I think I'll end up going with. I'll keep that ebay page in mind though in case I change my mind, thanks.

Kinda late on the party, but I made my own controller too back in the days, in parallel with CyberKevin.

There used to be a huge topic about that on a french project diva fansite : http://www.projectdiva.fr/forum/#p20246 .... RIP
TBH, we both had the idea to build our own after playing on a controller some dude from DDRBelgium build on the very early days of ProjectDiva. But the guy (forgot your nick, sorry dude ...) was really shy about sharing its design, because it was his own work, because they had exclusivity of such a controller back then (and was sometimes getting paid by conventions holder to shows up *cough cough*). But no hard feelings, we decided to build our own controllers with or without any help. BTW since then DDRBelgium stepped up their game quite much by building a full arcade cabinet if you're interested ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbPE45NR5NQ )

Anyways, I still got ressources I used to make mine http://aryetis.deviantart.com/art/Project-Diva-Homemade-Controller-449863436
So there it is: the 3D model, I made using google sketchup at the time : https://hijackedbrain.com/data/PPD_Controller_Final_v0.2%20.skp
It contains all the measurement. Thought I would recommend you to draw the top side of my model on a large piece of paper and fiddle with it a little, make your own adjustements. Because I designed it to fit my enormous hands, so buttons may be a little too far from each others. But I doubt you can bring them really closer to each other because of the black ring at the edge of the button, they would overlap.
In the file you can see two designs, for the top side, I decided to go with select and start at the center cause, because .... reasons.
I used some magnets to keep the bottom part attached to the rest of the controller.
I had to get my controller done pretty quickly because I was exposing it in a video game festival called Stunfest . And in the hurry I forgot one detail, there is no backdoor for a correct cable management. Also couldn't finish my own artworks in time for the stunfest so I cyberkevins generously share his owns in order to save a commplete disaster. The first Stunfest was brutal for the controller. Between me finish the soldering at the very last minute behind the stand, the cheap microswitches dying one by one, leds giving up from time to time, horrible cable management, contact failures.... I learned from my mistakes for the next one, bought better switches, remade the whole circuits, etc. And now it can easily supports the horde of hundreds people smashing it with their fists.

For the parts I used:
I took those buttons : http://www.starcab.net/product_info.php?cPath=219_163_171&products_id=507 (take them all white, you'll insert papers into them, and this will filter / change the color. So don't bother taking blue, red, yellow buttons, etc). Also I believe there is only three models of buttons like that on the internet, those cheap ones I used (with a squarish back screwable back), the official ones which are close to impossible to find, and djdao ones http://www.gamo2.com/en/index.php?dispatch=categories.view&category_id=264. You can go safely for the cheap ones AS LONG AS YOU CHANGE THE MICROSWITCHES, I swear to god the switches that come with those buttons are horrible, I missed nearly 5% of my notes because of them, or sometimes they register ghost inputs.... Just please change them using default 75g cherry ones for instance http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/microswitches/59-75-gram-cherry-microswitch.html 75g is enough considering how heavy the spring is.
And for the PCB, some cheap chinese interface ( Xin-Mo PS3 Controller with LED , http://www.xin-mo.com/single-player-controller.html ) no delay noticable ... The only "problem" is that there is only 8 pin for controlling leds so my L and R buttons are always on by default.
Also since project diva F2 introduced the "star buttons" which are validated using analog stick, I had to change my design a little. So during conventions, I hack an old playstation controller and solder my L and R buttons to one of the playstation controller analog stick.... It's a hack, it's diry, cheap... but it works. And I don't usually play on ps3 so I don't really care. What was important to me was to play the PPD songs that used every single buttons, arrows + symbols + L&R (btw there are too fews of those, please mappers, do more of them). Oh and because the board I use emulate an arcade style joystick for arrow, I can't do combinations like left+right. So to work my way around the problem, I simply linked my left button to the select pin, and up button to the start pin. Yeah it fu*** up the setup for playing on ps3, but again I don't care and can easily remap those buttons on PC. So now I can press every single button (except start+down & select+right) at the same time to do some crazy ass charts.
For the box, I used some Medium Density Fiberboard that I recycled from an old bunk bed.But I didn't screw them, I instead used wooden dowels and glue, for the edges, I glued some plastic gutters, and screwed plastic angles like those ( http://www.conrad.fr/ce/fr/product/318787/Coins-en-plastique-3-cts?queryFromSuggest=true ).

Overall wihtout counting the price of the tools I used, and the wood. I'd say this costed around 140€ (90€ for buttons, 20€ for microswitches, 20€ for the interface, and 10€ for cables, soldering, plastic stuff). But back then if you wanted to play PPD it was either go keyboard, go buy one of those huge official overpriced controller (we're talking at least 300€ including shipping), or make your own. There was no official USB mini-controller yet.


If you got questions, feel free to ask. I'll try to take a look at this thread from time to time. And if I don't show any signs of life for an extended period of time, just tweet at me @aryetis . As for doing a complete tutorial .... this would require making another controller from scratch, and I've got no need nor money to do this.

Wow. Thanks for all of that info, it's really helpful and it was neat reading your story on the earlier days. My only question after looking through everything you posted: Do you happen to have a button print-out file somewhere or know where they could be found? That seems to be my biggest hurdle at the moment, as I've secured most of the things I'll be needing to build the controller.

Ok so, I can't publish artworks I used for my controller, because as I've stated earlier, they're not mine (cyberkevin made them). Soooo yeah sorry for that if you were looking for the exact same.
BUT !
Since I built mine, there have been a lot people building their own project diva controller. I recommend you searching for "project diva 自作コン" <=> "project diva homemade controller", and with basic japanesse / google translate you should get interesting results.
For instance there is this dude called "meenia", sharing his whole creation process. Including its arts for buttons:
http://meenia.jp/diy/controller/miku-pd/pd-02
(click on "pda_button_sticker_rev3.zip")
Pics for arrows are smaller than for symbols, but if you wish you can still easily vectorize and upscale them with photoshop/gimp/paint.net.

I understand, but thanks for providing me with alternatives. I never would have thought to try digging through japanese websites, even though it makes a lot of sense thinking about it. The link you provided me might actually be perfect since I was planning on using a couple 60mm buttons.

I appreciate all the info you've been able to provide, since when I first was thinking about undergoing this project I thought it might be a bit overwhelming, but now I feel confident to go ahead and start building.

You're welcome.
Just keep in mind, you should first draw your layout on paper (scale 1:1 ofc), run some project diva yt video, and then "play" using this paper. In order to get a layout that suits your hands. And then redo the same once you got the buttons in your hands. Because once you've cut the wood/plastic, there is no way back.
Also, one thing I forgot on my controller, a small compartment to store your usb cable.

And keep the questions coming.

Nice work Aramir, those printout buttons help me alot, thanks !

Hi, I am saving up for a Project diva controller and I am exited, but what do you mean by Playing a Project Diva yt video with the paper? Probably know but not thinking.

"what do you mean by Playing a Project Diva yt video with the paper?"

I am just stuggesting to people who wants to build their own controller to test their layout as soon as they can by drawing it down on a piece of paper, putting a gameplay video of any project diva / PPD on yt and then pretend to play as the video goes.
You'll feel dumb doing it, you'll probably look dumb doint it too, heck it even sounds dumb. But it's better to test the layout as soon as possible to avoid misplacements before sculpting onto the wood.

Oh, yeah that makes sense thanks.

Quick question, I wan't to try out what you said, but what is the spacing for the actual arcade machine buttons?

I can put the three fingers in the middle of my hand between mine and they are fine, Idk how close to the AC cab this is but my hands aren't particularly big

No problem, thanks for the idea.