My home built metal DDR pad (Part IV)

pyro4fire · Basic Member Joined: 30 Dec 2004

itll be good, but xpensive, and i for one am going for cheap but secure and effective

Jeremy37077829 · Trick Member Joined: 20 Jan 2005 Location: New York

grgisme · Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 6:45 pm Post subject:

Thanks for all the input guys.

I got an actual sheet of sheet metal, 2 actually, today. Got my sheet metal for 18 bucks total (cheap!), got the plywood I need for the base and the borders, the screws I need, enough corner brackets for one pad (good grief... I'm going to try to bend my own with some spare sheet metal...), and the weatherstripping. Earlier in the day I also got all the Lucite I need for both pads for $35.00.

Gotta run, will talk more later

HitokiriX · Trick Member Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Location: Berwyn, PA

grgisme · Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 7:59 pm Post subject:

I went into a local glass shop (called Mores Paint and Glass -- family owned I believe), and just asked for 8 pieces of 11" x 11" "plexiglass" -- guy knew what I meant, else I'd have said acrylic -- and said I could cut it myself, or pay them to cut it if I had to. He went in the back and looked around and found scrap pieces that added up to what I wanted. Each piece was slightly larger than I needed, but he only charged me for what I had wanted. Not sure how much he was charging per foot or anything, but it was clearly pretty cheap. With tax I payed $35.62 for that.

The sheet metal was cheap, but is slightly different than what you guys have been using, it's not just one solid shiny color, has a slight design of some sort. It's still going to look good though. I'll put up pictures when I go to start building.

So far I've spent... $151.44. That's all my materials, minus another possible $25 for corner brackets on the second pad (unless I make it out of the spare sheet metal I have). That includes lights, and the border I'm putting on my pad as well, plus 2 project enclosures for the control boxes and the pushbuttons. I had a few things, such as the wood for the sheet metal panels and the wood for the frame, and I had a spare dance pad that I'm using the controller card out of. I still have yet to buy the wire, the cord between the pad and the control box, and the female connectors that wire will plug into. But I am likely getting those for free, along with the mouse pads to use for the traction on the bottom of the dance pad. I have to pay for my arrow graphics to be printed at Kinkos (I believe I'm going to try to have them printed on glow in the dark - adhesive paper).

Alright! I'm so close to building I can smell the burning wood from all my mistakes! Heh, I'm out for the night. I'll post updates with pictures as I begin the process. I'll be building one, testing it and perfecting it, and then building my second one.

adamthole · Trick Member Joined: 15 Jan 2005

Very nice, good luck.

I hope to be buying my materials in the next couple weeks...but I may wait and see how your lights turn out first.

pyro4fire · Basic Member Joined: 30 Dec 2004

im waiting on your lights too, ive been looking around the net and i now have a better understanding how they need to hook up but i lack the parts to mess around with... maybe if yours work ill just mooch off your knowledge

or i just might get to impatient and do it myself and spend more money

HitokiriX · Trick Member Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Location: Berwyn, PA

looking forward to your pad pics and tutorial grgisme!! If i ever get the chance to build my own I'll post pics as well. I had all the instructions layed out too....but my dad just took one look at it and said "too expensive".

then he went downstairs and fixed my broken CG pad with like cards or something. grr....it still sucks but works in some way....*sigh*

james9631 · Trick Member Joined: 27 Jan 2002 Location: Lexington, KY

yeah that sucks to have your parents around to tell you what you can and cannot do. I remember those days... heh. I hope you can get around to making it soon. I had a lot of fun making my first pad about 3 years ago. I was among a handful of others working off ddrhomepad's design. The pad worked ok and needed much improvement. Im no craftsman so no surprise there. Anyway, good luck to you and everyone else. It's a lot of fun.

ropeadope · Trick Member Joined: 20 Jul 2004

Should make the money yourself, then buy it if you really want it

Anyone like this following idea? I was thinking about doing the softpad mod, but adding some thick foam on top, it's kinda hard to explain exactly how i would set it on there, but i got a diagram in my head. I think that would really help out the longevity of the pad. I think i'm going to try it. I might just skip the "hardwood floor covering" part. I wonder where i could buy other than Redoctane: http://www.redoctane.com/ignition-insert.html

That looks like pretty good foam. I don't know where else i could buy it. Need to find some that doesnt wear down real fast, and it has to be thick of course, and not squishy. Any suggestions there?

SuRfReAk · Trick Member Joined: 19 Dec 2004

I've got an idea

. My friends and I bought two softpads before I built a metal one, but now they want metal ones too, since they're getting their own playstation (we used to share). Has anyone ever tried making a metal pad using the contacts from a soft one? I was thinking about just recessing the contacts into a piece of plywood with a router or something, then still using weatherstripping around it and lucite/lexan on top of it, so when you step on the lexan, it compresses the weatherstripping and hits the soft pad contact (just like a metal pad, without the metal contacts). Obviously I'd still have to build the 5 non-arrow panels, but I'm wondering if someone has tried this before/if the contacts can handle it.
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grgisme · Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 6:34 am Post subject:

How would you ajust the sensitivity then? I forsee you running into problems, not to mention that it's just as much work. I thought about it myself, but seems to me (especially in a wood environment) that the screw contact system would be more reliable. What's it going to hurt though? Odd's are you're already using the controllers out of the pads, so you wouldn't be losing anything. Good luck if you decide to go for it!

5thDementian · Trick Member Joined: 12 Oct 2004 Location: Kalamazoo, MI

I agree that it's a bad idea... it's basically a super thin piece of plastic (thinner than a piece of paper) with some very thin metal contacts that would tear easy. I don't think the pad would last very long.

If you do try it... make sure you design the pad in a way that will let you go back and re-make the buttons, should the soft-pad buttons fail.
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james9631 · Trick Member Joined: 27 Jan 2002 Location: Lexington, KY

the soft pad contacts are definitely thin plastic and very flimsy. They would not make good cantacts on the metal pad. I highly suggest you not to go this route.

SuRfReAk · Trick Member Joined: 19 Dec 2004

Oh. Thanks for the info. I used a ps2 controller for my contacts on my pad, so I didn't know what the contacts were like (e.g. never ripped open a soft pad for the circuit board). I just came up with it in my musings, trying to think of ways to save a little money. I think I'm just going so use some of chriss' (padmaker) ideas, with the screen and aluminum instead of sheetmeal, and lucite instead of lexan. Lexan is NOT worth the cost.
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HitokiriX · Trick Member Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Location: Berwyn, PA

SuRfReAk · Trick Member Joined: 19 Dec 2004

Lucite is an acrylic where Lexan is not. It cost me $70 for the Lexan alone for 2 pads. Yes, it's extremely strong, but I think you'll be fine with Lucite, even for 250 lbs. I remember Lucite being about half the cost, so I'd say around $40 for Lucite. I'm going to do some looking around, because that wasn't very good Lucite, it was pretty scratched up, and only had some sort of very thin cellophane covering over it. If you're worried about it breaking because of weight, you could just move the foam core slightly in, so there would be less unsupported surface, causing less sensitivity, but more strength (with that weight, it will still probably be pretty sensitive). I know Lexan holds up though, I've jumped on every arrow absolutely as hard as I could, and my 220 pound dad tried it out.
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