Bar construction? Help please!

[the girl Devin]

Hello, all! I just joined, and I have a few questions about pad building..

So I purchased all of my materials, plywood, sheet metal, etc. (I'm mostly following ddrhomepad's design), and I was wondering, does anyone have any tutorials on how to make a bar?

All I've seen so far is PVC pipe, but even links on how to install that would be fantastic.

Also if you have any other general tutorials or information about subjects such as sensors, lighting and arrow decal sites, that would be so much help! I have exactly one week to construct this for a science fair project. ;-;

Thank you so much in advance! And pardon my nub-ly ways. :/

[slvrshdw]

wow one week?...to perfect it?
hard to perfect in that short of time..but it is possible

use i would say just forget the bar for the science fair project, but tis really easy to make

now installing it and making it stable is the hard part.

i saw some post on the CF forums, and thats what mine is based off of. its 1 1/2" PVC, and its cheap and strong if you do it right
i can get some pics if you need them tomorrow

anyway, im working on my site now, but its not quite finished
if you *really* wanted/needed it i could send that to you
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[the girl Devin]

Ah alright, I'll look that up.

Well, I have a week to..build it in general.

My friend gave me $260 for it (HE'S SO GENEROUS T_T), as long as he gets to keep it when I'm done. I've spent $200 of it so far, excluding any sort of planning for a bar or lighting. The thing is, a bar is pretty much something essential that I really want to add, and I think it's really useful. Of course I won't add it in if I don't have time for it, but it's part of my goal.

I haven't started building yet because there's not much room in my house, and I don't actually have the tools for it. >>; But my friends offered to help and they have soldering irons and drills and such.

for my science fair project, I think I'm just going to experiment with how much weight/force it takes to trigger the sensor, and then compare it to an arcade pad and a soft pad. I'll probably also try and find a way to record my friends playing on my pad, and then in the arcade for comparison or something.

[slvrshdw]

ok good, you have access to tools...i forgot to mention that (btw, awesome friend if he gave you $260!)

anyway, id say to at least cut the baseboard to the size so you can easily add a bar to it later, that way its easy to just leave the way it is.


does your friend have a preference of "arcade feel" or just so it works?

because if he wants the arcade feel you are going to want to use the matrix sensor design, which is what i use...or you can use the basic sheet metal idea like the TX-???? pads/ddrhomepad's


in any case, the sensors are the hardest part of it.

also, forget any chance of lighting...its hard and i cant help you with it
let me find a pic of my mostly done pad to give you an idea of what i build...
*EDIT*

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[the girl Devin]

I bought some pegboard that's a little more than the size that I need so I can add a back piece to it, but that's about the only planning I did. XD

Yeah, I think both he and I definitely prefer an arcade feel..soft pads are just too unruly, unmovable and..well, not worth it, for me. :x
He has a metal pad, but he's sort of having trouble with the right arrow sensor, and the pad doesn't have a bar so a lot of the harder songs he plays (up to about 12 I think) can be pretty difficult, I imagine. It also makes some noise, but probably not the worst noise a pad could ever make..just a tad annoying.

He said that if I couldn't do it by the time it was due, then he could add in the lighting himself and such.

Do you know the cost of matrix sensors and perhaps where I might be able to buy them? I'm too young to have a credit card, and I'm also running out of time, so I can't buy online. XD;

edit: ooh, nice bar. I think I might just do something like that, but I'd probably end up painting it or adding covering to it or something like that. Originally my friends told me that I should make it have adjustable height, but I wasn't sure how I would accomplish that. Modified scooter bar? Haha.

[slvrshdw]

[ChilliumBromide]

If you want to make a metal bar, you can find good, sturdy steel pipes in the same section as the PVC pipes in most stores. I don't have time within the next week to make a tutorial, but if you want to give it a shot, just check in the electronics section of Home Depot or Lowes and look for big pipes. I suggest using the 1.5" pipes.
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I used to be active here lol

[GoPDemon]

Does anyone know the name of the joint that holds the bar in place at the bottom?!?!?! I can never find it :S

[slvrshdw]

a floor flange if i remeber correctly.

i just drilled a huge hole in my 2x4 and used a coupler though
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