My home built metal DDR pad (Part IV)

Momo -YHB- · Trick Member Joined: 15 Feb 2003 Location: Killeen, Texas

Nah u can finish it in a matter of hours, it just depends on how fast u work. I finished both of mine in about 8 hours. The most time consuming thing though was cutting the sheetmetal for the 5 squares and cutting and tripping the acrylic.
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Tarnaxx · Basic Member Joined: 20 Aug 2003

Has anybody tried to use a wireless controller for this project? Is there any reason why it wouldnt work?
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Home version: Ultramix (Xbox)
Current level: Maniac/Heavy
Working on: 10 foot

"What do you mean I can't wear size 36 shoes and stomp between the arrows?!?!?"

cool · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2003 4:54 pm Post subject:

I dont see any reason why it wouldn't work. I vaguely recall several people in the earlier metal pad threads using wireless controllers for their pads, but sadly those posts are gone.
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Hi my name is cool but yours isn't.

GumshoeSleuth · Basic Member Joined: 28 May 2003

Woooo I start my riptide style pad next sunday.

Im thinkin about using mending brackets instead of screws though. Any opinions?

Snof · Trick Member Joined: 09 Jun 2003 Location: UCSC

riptide · Trick Member Joined: 14 Aug 2002

Yea, that's pretty much what I did on my last pad and it works great. I didn't solder to the mending brackets, though. I sandwiched the wires between the mending bracket and the washers then put the screws down so that the wires were held secure and no soldering was required, yay

I also used mounting tape instead of spray adhesive to connect the sheet metal to the acrylic which worked very well and does reduce the sound of a step a whole lot.
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- RipTide
riptide (at) digitaltorque (dot) com

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My pad design: http://www.wubros.com/ddrpad/

SpaceMan · Trick Member Joined: 03 Dec 2002

Yeah .. I was thinking about putting lights in my pad, and I remember someone posted a diagram of how to wire the lights. Does anyone have anything like that?

Ikonomi · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2003 3:51 am Post subject:

TwitchingMan, Patster's guide on adding lights to his pad might be what you're looking for: http://home.attbi.com/~patster/DDR_Platform_Lighting.doc

I, however, have a different problem, one that's currently keeping me from finishing my pad. The design I used is somewhere between Patster's and Riptide's, but I didn't use Riptide's octagonal arrow panels. Instead, I just got 1/4" acrylic cut to 10 7/8" square and figured that would work fine.

But now... Well, due in part to the guy at Home Depot cutting my panels slightly sloppily, and in part to my mounting of the corner braces, a couple of my sets of panels don't fit their wells. I'd love to cut them down to 10 3/4", but I don't know how.

I have a few kinds of cutting implements at my disposal, but I dunno if any of them would actually work. I wish I had a hand planer like Riptide. but those seem too expensive to go and pick up. I'm really at a loss as to how to make my panels smaller. If anybody can give me some advice, I'd really appreciate it.

Oh, and hiyas. First post on these forums. This thread owns.

riptide · Trick Member Joined: 14 Aug 2002

They aren't that expensive are they? Here's a small hand surform for $6

http://www.lowes.com/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=99962-000018359-21-399

I use one that's about twice as long, and it can't cost much more than $10. I really don't use the hand plane for much except wood, but the surform I use on pretty much everything.
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- RipTide
riptide (at) digitaltorque (dot) com

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My pad design: http://www.wubros.com/ddrpad/

Ikonomi · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2003 11:53 am Post subject:

Whoa, now that seems more reasonable. I was reading a woodworking forum this morning, a post about planers, and came away completely convinced a Stanley one would run me $40. I'm going to run out and look for one of those now... Seems like a nice thing to have. Thanks, Riptide!

I was experimenting this morning with my circular saw and the acrylic, and felt pretty hardcore with flecks of plexiglas covering my face and gritted teeth. The Surform seems like a better solution,

GumshoeSleuth · Basic Member Joined: 28 May 2003

woooo materials are collected. Well all but the sheetmetal ( were having it cut for us ) and the mending brackets ( can i get these at lowes? ).

Cant wait till monday , it should be done then.

riptide · Trick Member Joined: 14 Aug 2002

Yup, you should be able to find mending brackets at Lowes...

One thing though... if you'd like to cut down on expenses a little, you might try using sheet metal cut at 2" instead of mending brackets. It'll be a bit thicker, but you should be able to add a washer or something to make up the difference.
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- RipTide
riptide (at) digitaltorque (dot) com

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My pad design: http://www.wubros.com/ddrpad/

cool · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2003 3:03 am Post subject:

Hello everybody. I just finished the screw mod for DDRHomepad's design, and sensitivity shot up like crazy. It was like night and day.

However I am scared that the screw will eventually pierce the top sheet metal along with the plexiglass making the mod useless. Should I change to screws made with a different metal(I believe I am using steel screws at the moment)? If that is not a good option, are there screws with blunt tips as opposed to sharp tips available, and do you think they will make a difference?

Thanks!

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Hi my name is cool but yours isn't.

Blue Beefman · Trick Member Joined: 31 Oct 2002 Location: WI

well for the screw mod, if you only have one screw in the middle, it will mess up the sheet metal, try putting more than one screw per arrow, that way your weight will be distributed throughout, thus putting less pressure on the screws. The sheet metal will still break down, but it will take much longer.
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He is the Painkiller

cool · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2003 5:16 pm Post subject:

Hey Beefman,

What do you think of this? I will layer weatherstripping all over the bottom contact, around the screw in the middle. You think that will distribute pressure adequately?
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Hi my name is cool but yours isn't.

Blue Beefman · Trick Member Joined: 31 Oct 2002 Location: WI

yeah, that would work too.
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He is the Painkiller

GumshoeSleuth · Basic Member Joined: 28 May 2003

final question....wtf is a mending bracket? ( heh i really dont know , or im not familiar with that name ).

riptide · Trick Member Joined: 14 Aug 2002

wenamba · Basic Member Joined: 21 Jul 2003

I am building a ddr pad, but have a problem. I'm from The Netherlands and your hardware stores have stuff we don't have. I really can't find a store that sells the Stanley cornerbraces, or something equivalent to that.
I also don't know the names of the hardware stores in the USA or Canada, that sells these corner braces. I've seen a couple of companynames in this topic where I can buy them, but none of them ships overseas. So, if you know a store that ships overseas and sells cornerbraces ... please let me know

thnx
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-=\/\/enamb/\=-

DrSatan · Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2003 2:07 am Post subject:

I finished my home-built pads a while ago, and have recently fishished tweaking them. They are working very nicely now.

I'll post pics as soon as I can steal a digital camera for a little while.

I used riptide's main design with the following differences: There is weatherstripping near the corners. I attached ground wires to the 4 metal strips under each arrow with foam tape (it's expensive!) between each metal strip and my acrylic. There are 4 large mending brackets in the center of each arrow and screws holding them in. All of the wires for each sensor go to one of two screws in the sensor box--one for signal, the other for ground. The screw for each sensor has two washers to stick the wires in and screw down into. Fron the screws of each sensor go to another collection of screws under an upper metal panel. (I did this to keep wire segments different and to aid in diagnosis and repair. It is SO much easier to replace a little wire that goes from a metal strip to the screw than the whole entire length.) From the screws under the metal panel, a CAT5 cable (still sheathed) runs to my cheap control box (ok, it's not really a control box, it's just the mad catz controller with the d-pad missing and teh cat5 going in through the shoulder button). It's nice that way in several ways, one is that i get a long cable due to the CAT5 length + length of the controller, it's cheap (hey, you had to use a controller anyway), and it's easy to put together. It's so nice and sensitive. When I first used it, just resting the "control box" on one of the arrows would make it register.

I added the weatherstripping to the corners to avoid ghosting. After about a week and a half of tweaking, they are quite nice. Today I played 3rd Mix style nonstop on Stepmania with random songs and I made it through 53 songs all on heavy (it takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes of CONSTANT, draining play) and I had no problems, even on songs like Cartoon Heroes (I love that song, btw). I had to end because of a job interview, but I feel like i could have gone on for at least a couple more songs.

However, this post is rather long, and I hope that I havn't strayed too far off topic at any point, and typing it at this hour, I hope it is also comprehensible. Good luck to all of you making your pads! Photos comming soon!
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"We are all born mad. Many remain so."