My home built metal DDR pad (Part IV)

[vesper]

[Shaggy7728]

windows ME edition dosnt support Divx, so i cant watch them. i can hear them though but thats kindof frustating only listening to instructions, i may be forced to do so though.
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I once said to a friend of mine, "I want to make a song that dosn't end..."
He looked at me for a few seconds and asked,"Why don't you?"
He got smacked for that one.

[vesper]

http://www.teamd5r.vze.com/

See if you can view the videos from the "Videos - Upload or View!" section, it might work because it streams them. I think the ending of some of the videos is cut off, but it's better than nothing

If that doesn't work, you can still view pics from his site for a guideline. Marquistadorus and I both built pads using his instructions, so I'm sure one of us can help you if you need it

[Shaggy7728]

IT WORKS!!! the videos work and thanks alot. ill use it to my advantage and thanks alot.
_________________

I once said to a friend of mine, "I want to make a song that dosn't end..."
He looked at me for a few seconds and asked,"Why don't you?"
He got smacked for that one.

[marcan]

Just do yourself a favour and download VLC media player. Small, simple, lightweight, open source, adwarefree/spamfree/crapfree, plays everything.

[slvrshdw]

yeah, riptide doesnt have a *complete* list of everything you need

and i was going to suggest seeing that streaming site...i was beaten to it


yeah, vlc is a GREAT media player...codecs and everything (including anime!)

i have it if people cant find it
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[Shaggy7728]

well im back for another question, on ddrhomepad i cant find a list of materials without going through all the steps and writing all of it down (plus more since im adding an x and o button) i have no problem with that but why do more work than i have to?
_________________

I once said to a friend of mine, "I want to make a song that dosn't end..."
He looked at me for a few seconds and asked,"Why don't you?"
He got smacked for that one.

[Ornlu]

I have two rather specific questions about lighting, I tried reading through the whole thing, but decided I'd rather design and build a pad myself. I've built speaker cabinets before, and amplifiers, so I have some carpentry and electronics experience, but I still have a few questions.

I play 10-11 footers at home (RO), but I've only been to the arcade once, so forgive my ignorance.

Lighting:
a) In the arcade do the lights stay on for as long as you're standing on them? Or do they blink for a second then go off? This changes my design a bit.

b) For my lighting I'm going to be using 4 ccfls + 2 inverters (maybe 4 depending on current demand) powered by a spare PC power supply. Meaning I have easy access to 12, 5 and 3.3 v rails. Not that I can't just use a divider... But anyway.. I think the ccfls run off the 12v line, now I don't want to hook the 12 volt line directly up to the sensor, so I was wondering what the best way to do that would be.


But anyway, for the first scenario I'm guessing the best way would be to use a comparator for an even response without disturbing the controllers electronics with excessive voltage... Or would it be better to have the comparator output going to the controller itself rather than the ccfl?

And for the second would the best method be to use a comparator, a 555 timer and a d latch? Probably with the 555 timer using a 200k resistor and 1uf cap, giving it a .4 second cycle. Although I suppose that would be laggy as it would have to wait for the edge...Ugh too much ddr in the last hour and now I can't think in engineering. The circuit's getting too complicated in my brain. I'm thinking pad to the comparator as a reset into a 555 timer with an inverted and non inverted output into a d flip flop so that when it falls low it will shut off permanently, but there's probably a really easy way that I'm not thinking of, and maybe DDR pads don't even work like this and I can just go with the first method.

Panels:
Will the two quater inch plexiglass sheets crack with shoe use? I weigh 150 lbs, but will doing UB3r R4vE repeatedly without putting any weight on a bar break the plexi? IE am I better off just going with lexan even with the added cost?

Thanks for any and all responses,
Rob

[Ornlu]

Well I probably shouldn't have posted that RIGHT after playing ddr and RIGHT before thinking... I was apparently at the nexus of the universe or perhaps just limbo. But regardless, I had some water, and some food... and about 30 seconds to think.

Anyway, it seems like it would be stupid to have the lights shut off while standing on them (no idea how to deal with freezes etc without some really complex circuitry. So, I decided to do something as follows:



The transistor I'd use would be a 2n3904 just because they're cheap... like 0.30. It's basically just regulated by the base, so when you're stepping on the arrow 12v is applied to the base which allows flow across the PNP junction (I think the 3904's are rated to 15? But regardless there should be no current so it's not a big deal). But anyway, this should trigger the controller without adding any extra voltage to that circuit.[/img]

The problem is that it requires four inverters, which kind of sucks. I don't really feel like putting the switches on the AC end of things as I'm not sure whether the inverters are designed to take that kind of stress. Not to mention that I'd need diodes and capacitors to make a AC_DC converter for the transistor portion, otherwise the pad would register a 60 hz jack hammer =).... =/...

Anyway.... Ontop of this circuit I'll probably build a microphone input with a low pass filter (80 hz 6 db/decade falloff) and a flip flop for the horizontal and vertical arrows (red flash on first bass hit then blue flash on next) with an on off switch on the breakout box outside the pad so that I can make a cheap "idle" mode. I really don't have the patience to program anything like the official pads. Although using a 555 timer with the pad input as a reset I could set this up as an "if there's no input for X time" activate the flip flop. And then on any input pulse to flip it the other way.

I'm just word vomiting.. You can kind of ignore this I suppose.

[marcan]

[marcan]

Darn, you beat me to it, and with the exact same circuit. Guess we agree on it then

[Ornlu]

Does lexan have horrible transmission or are you just getting TIR problems from trying to light the non perfect edge? What's the refraction of lexan?

Also thanks for the really fast response, I realized how silly my post was after I had a bite to eat and posted the next one, which probably came while you were writing yours.

Yeah, the common emitter transistor design was probably the simplest way. I'll have to look into the PIC micro controller, I like the idea of the screen saver (as you can probably tell from my last post) Although my idea was much less complicated and required no programming.. lol. I really don't fancy doing that as it would require a lot more research and time (but maybe somewhere down the line).

[Ornlu]

Regardless of the transmission if I use Lexan||Arrow decal||Plexi and light from the bottom the arrow should light up quite well through diffusion alone.

http://www.xpcgear.com/4inchwhiteccfl.html

This might actually be a good idea... Probably cheaper than buying from an electronics company. I'll need 4, but it will DEFINITELY be enough light. To be honest I'd like to get 4 of the "CCFL fan" lights, as the shape would be more condusive to this use, however that ends up being more expensive.

Another option would be to use UV lights, the illumination would be pretty cool, however I'm wondering if it wouldn't be bright enough.

Although that would be rather hilarious if i used Lexan (lexan blocks 90% of UV light...) *sigh* But in theory you could get a very cool reaction using this principle with a bright enough UV light as the arrow would appear to be completely illuminated with absolutely no direct light source. Pretty much as if the arrow decal itself were a light source. Unfortunately I think most of the 4 inch "affordable" variety wouldn't do very well in this lighting situation.

[marcan]

Light transmission across it is fine for normal uses. My problem is I _wanted_ TIR, since I wanted light to enter the edge and then leave when it hit a diffuse surface at the bottom (paint - see about 3-4 pages ago a post about it). However, the large distance light had to travel through it killed it pretty fast (like glass? I believe regular glass is pretty crappy at this too due to impurities). Or maybe it's some other reason. Anyway, if you see what I mean, when you look at the edge of acrylic it light up due to light entering the plastic, With lexan the edge is dark. However, it must be impurities in it (something they add for UV blocking on windows or somesuch, maybe?), because CDs are made of polycarbonate too and the light transmission is very good.

With regard to PIC microcontrollers, I think the learning curve is not too bad - the assembly programming for the 16F series is only 35 straightforward instructions (lots of which are obvious variations - MOVLW, ADDLW, SUBLW, ANDLW, IORLW, XORLW, MOVWF, ADDWF, SUBWF, ... etc), and as I said, I already have the code for a controller + screensaver if you want it (it uses the A/D converters since it was for my design, but I can easily fix that to work with a normal switched pad). You could also use C, I believe there is a free version of the compiler (maybe with a couple limitations). The assembly compiler and development environment is free (for windows), and you can get opensource clones (gputils) for Linux. Or, if you want a screensaver but prefer discrete electronics, you could build one with an OR of the pads resetting a timer, which times out after a certain period and lets a counter (clocked by a simple slow oscillator) start counting, whose value then gets piped in into a "dumb" ROM which contains the pattern to light up the lights in sequence for the screensaver. Would make for an interesting circuit, and probably not too complicated.

If you want info on PICs, check out the manufacturer's site at http://www.microchip.com for datasheets and lots of info, and have a look at http://www.piclist.com for an awesome collection of resources and a great maling list (which I'm subscribed to). PIClist also has a gazillion links to sites on everything about PICs, from programmers to webservers-on-a-chip.

By the way, I believe you'll need a current limiting resistor in series with the transistor base.

Edit: you edited too! Answering your edits:

UV would work if the arrow decal (or something under it) was made of some fluorescent material, and whatever is between that and the light source does not block UV light. I use a 25mm white CCFL on the edge of the lower acrylic piece, and TIR distributes the light (not very evenly, but I'll try to fix that by patterning the paint on the bottom). Problem is with my pad design I can't put anything under the acrylic, since right underneath it is a hunk of wood that distributes pressure to the sensor, which is in the center, so light has to come from the sides.

[Ornlu]

yeah, I'll probably just end up using a dumb circuit to do the screen saver.... Now where did I put my copy of logicworks? By the way, do you know if there are any better "logic" programs? Logicworks has given me some major headaches in the past with disconnected wires, etc etc.

By the way, which variety of Pspice do you use? I use the Orcad release but the interface is kind of clunky. Good idea on the resistor, but theoretically there shouldn't be any through the base, right?

[marcan]

[Ornlu]

Hmm.. I was probably getting it confused with the fet model, the capacitance idea is what made it pop in my head.

You're right, using the BJT it's just like a sandwiched diode so when you apply charge to the P current can flow, which includes the currnt going into the base (P). Since it's a diode it has no resistance...just a 0.7 volt drop. So good thing you reminded me to use a current limiting resistor. Whew.

[marcan]

Now I'm wondering what everyone else is thinking about all this electronics talk... lol

[Ornlu]

Probably thinking about how boring it sounds. Which it does if you have no concept of the basics.

But anyway, I've recently been doing a lot of tube work, so I was thinking about doing this all with a fancy looking glowing tube break-out box. But I'd need to run a LOT of wires to it....so it's probably just a pipe dream. Not to mention bjt is just better suited for this application anyway.

[ksuquix]