DDR / Stepmanina selfmade >pad<

[amtcubus]

Hi everyone. While back wess showed how to mod an old DDR pad with plexi and some wood.

I took that a bit further. I made my very own "pad"

Since i had a Joystick lying around i never use, i thought "hey, all i need for some DDR action should be at least 6 buttons" and with that in mind i mad it.

Here a pic of the current state ( the controller at that time was some cheap gamepad wich wasnt the right thing for it. after 4 - 6 steps it stoped working and a reconnect of the controller was needed :( so at the moment it works with the controller unit of a Logitech Wingman attack Joystick :) )

Only some nice collored arrows, a cool logo in the middle and painting the rest of the plexi black is left.

If you guys are interested in how it works, here are pics of it without the plexi after adding screws as contacts.

To get it working i used some wire mesh wich is added to the back of the plexi and fixed with small screws. All i changed later is the fact that i soldered the wires to the contacts ( before they where between screw and dismanteled wires for testing purpose ) and replaced the placeholder screws with wood ( it looked pretty good with the screws. But after stepping on it for the first time and hearing a *crack* i replaced them )

If you guys got some nice arrows or a cool logo for the middle, i would apericate it if you would share it with me :)

Cooper: Fixed the link

[cooper]

The link for the additional pics is yielding a 404 off of Lycos (ahh, never mind. Fixed it for ya. You had a '/ddr' extra). Other than that, it looks pretty cool. The thing that I wonder about when I see things like these is at what point will the plexi break, and at what point, if ever, will it simply bend and eventually make contact continuously?

Nice job regardless.

[amtcubus]

Aboutz breaking and stuff :It all depends on how much space you have between plexi and wood and the thickns of the plexi. I used a 2.5mm plexi. If you use a plexi wich is too thin, you could encounter the bending problem with a continuously contact. I have something round max. 6mm space between the plexi and the wood plate. i think about make it a bit less. around 4 mm should work better than it now dose ( the start button wont make contact sometimes ( i guess i just have to relocate some screws ) )

But all in all, it works the way i wanted it too. :)

In the beginning of this little project i tought about using real buttons. But after looking around, it appears to be a bad idea, cause it would have cost too much ( a brand new metal DDR would be far cheaper then to buy those buttons i wanted to use :( )

Getting back about the plexi breaking. When the plexi is too thick and you have too much space inbetween it will break very fast if the "button" is too small. The thicker the plexi, the bigger the "button". Cause you cant bend something thick without breaking it when it is too small. It's a pure size thing.