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ChilliumBromide
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Joined: 16 Jun 2006
Location: Beaverton, OR |
5980.  Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 8:54 pm Post subject: |
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What I'd suggest for the panels is have it like streetlights. Use a sheet of black steel with an arrow-shaped hole and a grille on it, (just make sure the surface is flat) and put that over a sheet of lexan or plexiglas. Then use red, green, blue, and/or yellow lights.
Also, I think that for the borders, having either street signs or caution tape would be cool. Both are about the thickness of your average homebrew.
For a bar, you could use a bike rack. =)
EDIT: "AND THE WORLD WILL KNOW THAT 300 [DDRFREAKS] GAVE THEIR LAST BREATHE TO DEFEND IT!" (page 300)
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Last edited by ChilliumBromide on Sun Apr 22, 2007 12:16 am, edited 1 time in total |
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Sain
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Joined: 19 Jul 2002
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| 5981. Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:27 pm Post subject: |
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Photoshop of what I'll probably build, just because the white sheet metal will be cheaper and easier to get.
White pad, white style arrows.
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Ghettobarney
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Joined: 21 Dec 2006
Location: Failing Pandy |
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idConstruct
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Joined: 12 Mar 2007
Location: Green Bay, WI |
| 5983. Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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yeah...
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Sain
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Joined: 19 Jul 2002
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| 5984. Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 5:11 pm Post subject: |
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| idConstruct wrote: | | yeah... |
If you look at the first page DDRHomepad had a good point about not creating a new thread. The old threads werent archived and alot of info was eventually lost. However I dont think it would be a bad idea.
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Ghettobarney
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Joined: 21 Dec 2006
Location: Failing Pandy |
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idConstruct
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Joined: 12 Mar 2007
Location: Green Bay, WI |
| 5986. Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 7:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Sain.One wrote: | | idConstruct wrote: | | yeah... |
If you look at the first page DDRHomepad had a good point about not creating a new thread. The old threads werent archived and alot of info was eventually lost. However I dont think it would be a bad idea. |
Yeah i saw that... but i think the other ones got deleted because it didn't get backed up properly or something, or maybe it just got pruned... someone else probably knows
I guess i personally don't mind that its such a big thread, but its still kinda pointless having 300 pages behind the up to date pages. I don't think many ppl are going to actually read through it all (it'd take several days)... i didn't
But like i said... i really don't care either way
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penguinxtreme
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Joined: 17 Feb 2007
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| 5987. Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:09 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="Sain.One"] | DancingTofu wrote: |
To keep with the theme though. This would be the arrow style.
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Nice, I love that Idea. By the way, if you really want cheap road signs you could always just take some off the road  , though technicaly that is illegal, and you really shouldn't do that, but if you're really desperate...
I am sure you could find it for less $70+ though, and if you look hard enough you can probably find them cheaper than regular sheet metal. Maybe try a road sign factory (if you can find one) and see if they have reject signs you can get for free, or try the town/city management thing or whatever, they might have roadsigns that they replaced. |
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Sain
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Joined: 19 Jul 2002
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| 5988. Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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I was looking at the white signs I was planning on using for my pad and the metal is about as thick as a dime. Not sure if thats too thick, but its alto thicker than the sheet metal i found at home depot.
Ok I went to home depot today to check out prices for things. Found 2' x3' sheets of 30 gauge sheet metal for $7. Theres also aluminum flashing for $8 and its 14" x 10'. So thats an option. I haven't seen too many pads made with flashing and the few i have didn't look to nice. However its still something to consider.
However the plexi seems like a killer. Its going to cost around 35 for eight 11x11 pieces of 1/4" plexi. However I can get four pieces of 3/32" crystallite and just use plywood underneath for 10 bucks. I remembering reading somewhere that they got a bad response from this though. Anyone have experience with this.
Im not positive whether or not I'm going to use the mending bracket contact or the old style sheet metal contacts. But found huge brackets for $0.50 that could be cut into fourths. So that could keep the price down on sheet metal cost.
I should start building it soon, by the upcoming weekend. Anyone have and input of the sheet metal vs flashing issue. Or can comment on how thick is too thick for sheet metal. (keep in mind i'm going to bend this with a rubber mallet.
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Travelsonic
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Joined: 08 Oct 2005
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| 5989. Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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I got some wiring issues/questions in regards to my pad that I NEED answered ASAP to keep my pad construction on schedule.
1) When wiring thetwo sensors per arrow, should I run/do the wiring , series or parallel?
2) I tested my gamepad, 2 sensors/arrow, using an extremely crude method of construction where the commons from each wire/arrow (2 sensors/arrow) came together, and were run to the common on the old control box chip I am using. For the hot wiress, I ran them out to their respective points on the same chip. When I tested this though, I got more greats than perfects, and a TON of goods, and some boos/misses. Are there any solutions to this matter for the intensive purpose of testing, or will this all go away once this is properly soldered?
2 B) For clarification, I am using the chip in the control box from my original metal pad, bypassing the chip/pin connectors in the main part of the pad. For testing I connected the commons from each arrow and ran it to the common point on the chip, and ran the arrow wire to each point on the chip. I am having problems with registering hits here.
2) would the sensor responsiveness be affect by the 5/16ths inch foam I placed next to them in regards of being able to step down on the foam and having a hit registered?
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I'll believe that when me **** turns purple, and smells like rainbow sherbet. |
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idConstruct
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Joined: 12 Mar 2007
Location: Green Bay, WI |
| 5990. Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 2:23 pm Post subject: |
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If you wire them in series, one break in the connection will take the whole thing down. If you wire them in parallel, a single break will not take the whole sensor down, but the tradeoff is that you will have a partially broken panel that may not be noticeable at first...
I would go with series because then if one breaks, you'll know right away and you'll be able to fix it instead of unknowingly using a bad panel...
idk much about the rest...
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Standard Girl
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Joined: 25 Apr 2007
Location: New York State |
| 5991. Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 5:42 pm Post subject: |
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 i didnt know u could build ur own ddr pad!!! WOW   i wish i could understand at least one word of one of those guides. |
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ChilliumBromide
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Joined: 16 Jun 2006
Location: Beaverton, OR |
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poppscc
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Joined: 12 Aug 2006
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| 5993. Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 8:24 pm Post subject: |
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| does anyone know the wiring schematics of the tx4000? I'm building a homepad and would like to know so it would be compatible with my tx4000. |
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Travelsonic
Trick Member
Joined: 08 Oct 2005
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| 5994. Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 4:02 am Post subject: |
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| idConstruct wrote: | If you wire them in series, one break in the connection will take the whole thing down. If you wire them in parallel, a single break will not take the whole sensor down, but the tradeoff is that you will have a partially broken panel that may not be noticeable at first...
I would go with series because then if one breaks, you'll know right away and you'll be able to fix it instead of unknowingly using a bad panel...
idk much about the rest... |
One question, would series wiring at all inhibit the use of each of the arrow sensors independently, requiring both sensors to be stepped on in order to trigger a hit?
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I'll believe that when me **** turns purple, and smells like rainbow sherbet. |
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Matrlx
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Joined: 22 Jan 2006
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| 5995. Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 5:20 am Post subject: |
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| Travelsonic wrote: | | idConstruct wrote: | If you wire them in series, one break in the connection will take the whole thing down. If you wire them in parallel, a single break will not take the whole sensor down, but the tradeoff is that you will have a partially broken panel that may not be noticeable at first...
I would go with series because then if one breaks, you'll know right away and you'll be able to fix it instead of unknowingly using a bad panel...
idk much about the rest... |
One question, would series wiring at all inhibit the use of each of the arrow sensors independently, requiring both sensors to be stepped on in order to trigger a hit? |
It would inhibit the functionality of the arrow panel to wire the sensors as a series. There's pretty much only two reasons to use multiple sensors in the first place:
1. Redundancy, so in exactly the case that one sensor breaks it doesn't break the entire arrow panel. You don't need to trigger every sensor, just one of them.
2. Increase the 'area of contact' where you can trigger a sensor. Like where you can step on the inside of an arrow panel, and only trigger the sensor closer to the inside than any on the opposite side of the panel. (Goes along with reason 1, you only need to trigger 1 sensor.)
That's pretty much why you see 4 sensors along each edge of an arrow panel in DDR/ITG machines. I really don't know why they changed to a 2-sensors-in-the-middle setup for the Solo machines, but that didn't last too long.
As for your controller wiring, it doesn't sound like you're doing anything wrong. Have you tried testing just the controller without using the sensors? For example, taking just the wires that connect to the common and arrow sensors and just manually triggering the button press by touching the wires together and seeing if there's a delay?
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penguinxtreme
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Joined: 17 Feb 2007
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| 5996. Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 12:47 pm Post subject: |
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| DepressedTofu wrote: | Of course you can; DTG, CF, and Beat Gear are all basically homebrews. Very few good pads are made by people made of metal. (AKA factories and Chinese people)
Disclaimer: The Chinese people part is a joke. I don't really think Chinese people are robots.  |
LOL, the disclaimer was funnier than the joke I thought though. Yeah, building a pad isn't that hard at all in technical skill required. It's just really time consuming, relatively expensive (I've spent at least $20 above my original amount I spent on materials because of various changes in desing), and hard to get just right (ever heard the saying it takes 15% of the time to do 85% of the work, and 85% of the time to do the over 15%; well for me it's been more like 95% of the work in 10% of the time, and 90% of the time getting it to work right.
Anyways, an update on my progress, and a question. My original bending sensors (similar to what inventgeek suggests on their DDR pad) worked absolutely terribly, so I ended up replacing it with the matrix design (though using 2 .75in wide 3ft long 12guage steel sticks cut to 4.5 in long instead of mending brackets to save money). This made the plexi WAY above the non-buttons, so I rasied those by sticking a couple nuts under each corner. I then cut holes in the plexi with my dremel, and held them down with little screws so they wouldn't slide out of place. This worked great, but since the bottom plywood is only 1/4in thick, they screws just popped right out after a while (like 15 mins of use). This brings me to my question:
Any ideas on a easy and cheap (so no corner brackets) way to hold the plexiglass down in place so it won't pop/slide out of place when I play? I am a bit stuck here.
p.s. As for the putting the image on the plexi, I tried all kinds of glue, and all failed, so in the end I made a template and spray painted the design on with black and green, and it looks pretty good (though not perfect, spray painting a template is hard to do). I also set up a control box with the start, back, and reset (it comes in handy) buttons, and a quick disconnect using a CAT-5 female connector. |
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poppscc
Basic Member
Joined: 12 Aug 2006
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| 5997. Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 5:35 pm Post subject: |
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I figured a way to make the plexiglass panels fit a lot better on homepads. hopefully I will get it done this weekend for a display.
bump for:
does anyone know the wiring schematics of the tx4000? I'm building a homepad and would like to know so it would be compatible with my tx4000. |
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Travelsonic
Trick Member
Joined: 08 Oct 2005
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| 5998. Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Matrlx wrote: | | Travelsonic wrote: | | idConstruct wrote: | If you wire them in series, one break in the connection will take the whole thing down. If you wire them in parallel, a single break will not take the whole sensor down, but the tradeoff is that you will have a partially broken panel that may not be noticeable at first...
I would go with series because then if one breaks, you'll know right away and you'll be able to fix it instead of unknowingly using a bad panel...
idk much about the rest... |
One question, would series wiring at all inhibit the use of each of the arrow sensors independently, requiring both sensors to be stepped on in order to trigger a hit? |
It would inhibit the functionality of the arrow panel to wire the sensors as a series. There's pretty much only two reasons to use multiple sensors in the first place:
1. Redundancy, so in exactly the case that one sensor breaks it doesn't break the entire arrow panel. You don't need to trigger every sensor, just one of them.
2. Increase the 'area of contact' where you can trigger a sensor. Like where you can step on the inside of an arrow panel, and only trigger the sensor closer to the inside than any on the opposite side of the panel. (Goes along with reason 1, you only need to trigger 1 sensor.)
That's pretty much why you see 4 sensors along each edge of an arrow panel in DDR/ITG machines. I really don't know why they changed to a 2-sensors-in-the-middle setup for the Solo machines, but that didn't last too long.
As for your controller wiring, it doesn't sound like you're doing anything wrong. Have you tried testing just the controller without using the sensors? For example, taking just the wires that connect to the common and arrow sensors and just manually triggering the button press by touching the wires together and seeing if there's a delay? |
No, I havn't, but Thursday I am working with my dad on the wiring.
Just one question, were DDR/SOLO/etc pads wired in series or parallel?
From that answer we will work on a solution. 
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I'll believe that when me **** turns purple, and smells like rainbow sherbet. |
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ChilliumBromide
Trick Member
Joined: 16 Jun 2006
Location: Beaverton, OR |
| 5999. Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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The arrows in the DT600 prototype are held in by 4 screws which simply protrude from the bottom of the panel into corresponding holes in the base. The panels will pop out of their holes a little with every step (maybe .02-.05"), then just fall back. There's no sliding, and the screws don't need tightening because I hold them on with nuts on the other side of the panel, which also means there's no risk of the screws ripping their holes, since they're held on by steel nuts. =)
I haven't tested it on anything higher than an 8 yet, but there's no reason why something like this wouldn't work; gravity is on your side.
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