Every great arcade needs a great sound system to really belt out those 80’s sounds. We bought a set of Logitech Z2300 computer speakers for this very thing.

We selected this particular speaker set for a single reason: the controller. The controller is remote from the speakers and has volume control, bass adjust and a headphone jack that turns off the speakers.

If you dismantle this you find a small circuit boards:

The idea was to remove the control pots and the earphone jack from the board and use wire and connectors to remotely locate them in the cab. A guy at work offered to do the mod for me:

It looks a little clunky, which we could live with, if it worked. Unfortunately it doesn’t. Not sure what went wrong, but when we plug it in nothing happens. The other controller works fine (the one we haven’t butchered yet), so we know it isn’t the speakers.

So now what? A little research on the world wide webs found that other people have experienced problems with this controller (without trying to mod it) and came up with a DIY controller. You can order the PCB from BatchPCB and the component list from Mouser Electronics:

So we ordered the components (about $32 including S&H) and we will try to build the new controller using cable to connect the devices to the PCB. This should be fun!