DJTechTools is a site that pioneered upgrading the VCI 100 to the VCI-100 SE (Special Edition). Here is my ‘one stop shop’ guide to doing the DIY arcade mod all by yourself, including filing the holes for the arcade buttons. No machine shop, nothing! You will, however, need access to a PC for the Firmware upgrade.

So this is a bit of a ball ache, i’m not going to lie. Most of the support / instructions are on DJTT but, in my experience, it is no longer all in one place as they don’t really do an ‘Arcade Pack’ anymore. They decided to discontinue that. But they do still sell almost everything you need to do this magical and well worthwhile upgrade.

First off here are the pictures of the process on flickr, have a look and see if it feels doable. It’s not rocket science but it’s fiddly. These instructions should help though.

This is going to be slanted towards a UK perspective but perhaps it will be useful for anyone wanting to do this worldwide.

So, here goes…

Good luck, and may the force be with you

Step 1: Place order on DJ techtools STORE (CLICK HERE)

You will need to order:

1. 8 x Arcade Buttons – choose colours in pairs (ie 2 x white, 2 x blue, 2 x green, 2 x yellow). I used green and yellow for play and cue like a cdj and white and blue for the fx (See pic)
2. Some knobs and sliders – again colour your choice.
3. VCI 100 Firmware Kit
4. Overlay (for this mod, go for the arcade overlay)

Total Cost: Around $129.50 or around £82 at today’s exchange rate. Truth is this may take a few weeks to arrive. Also you are likely to have to chase it up at Customs and pay around £18 customs charge tax. I ended up having to phone US postal for the number too etc.

Step 2: Get the electrical gear you need.

The main source of this section comes from this article on DJTT read this first. But I will show you how to do this mod without going to the Machine Shop!!

Go to Maplins and purchase the following (mostly copied and pasted from this article on DJTT)

1. Lead wires- 16 about 3-4 inches long (can be cut from microphone cable)
2. Diodes- 8 50 PRV 200ma switching diodes (NB this speck doesn’t have to be exact, these switching diodes will do).
3. Shrink sleeve- get about 2 feet so you can professionally protect your connections. Shrink Sleeve is a plastic tube that shrinks down to enclose an exposed wire when heat is applied. Some people have heat guns but a match or lighter works fine.
4. Electrical tape
5. Phillips screw driver- One medium and one small tip-
6. Wire stripper
7. Solder
8. Solder Iron
9. Filing Set, something like this. This is to make the arcade button holes in the vci so make sure is fairly substantial.
10. A serial to USB cable (for the Firmware upgrade)

I cant remember how much this all came to, but it was around £60 i’m sure.

Step 3: Do the Mod.

For this section you will need to combine these two tutorials.

This tutorial is about doing the DIY  Arcade Modification. It’s sort of edited in annoying way but is followable (just ignore the section about machine shop because we are making our own holes – see below)

Also, this video is amazingly helpful, it’s Ean’s original “how to do a mod video”, and it includes, adding the diodes yourself etc

Things to note, the direction of the diodes is important. They normally come with red paper at one end. This is the end with the band on, The band should be nearest the button.

check this too http://djtechtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21028 it’s for LED arcade buttons but is usefull none the less.

http://www.djtechtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13178&highlight=diodes

This tutorial is how to file your own arcade holes.

http://www.djtechtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8244&highlight=diy+arcade

This tutorial is about applying the overlay

http://www.djtechtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5552

This is me doing mine

Step 4: Doing the Firmware Upgrade and installing the TSI

Again this is about following an article on DJTT. NB I used a serial to USB cable and it worked fine.

http://www.djtechtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18181

Hope this helps.
Cheers

Mx1 x