Ben999_'s Arcade DDR Pad

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I created this DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) pad after my cheap ass vinyl pad broke on me. I discovered DDRHomePad's page and expanded on his and Patster's ideas to make my own. Check out the pics and think about building one yourself. I paid maybe 60 bucks to do this, but only because I had most of the materials available. The corner brackets will run you about 25 dollars, and the plexiglass was about 30 dollars depending on your design. The whole thing probably took me 10 hours or so, I'm not sure because I did it over a long span of time.

Here's the frame and the metal squares layed out but not attached. The squares are all 11" x 11". I used a sheet of plywood on the bottom, and "two by fours" ripped in half, for the risers.

Those are squares of plywood with some aluminum flashing bent over them. The corner brackets are only available at Home Depot, they are Stanley brand.

The pads were all pretty much wired in this way except that you SHOULD NOT USE THE MIDDLE SCREWS! They will cause your arrow to crack later on. I learned this the hard way. Those black things are pieces of weatherstripping, which springs the arrow back up after a press.

I cut the aluminum to the correct size and placed it under some plexiglass. I ended up using squares of 1/4" plywood later on because it was much stronger. So it made a sandwich with metal on the bottom, then 1/4" plywood, then the arrow design, then the plexiglass. The metal on the bottom connects the screws together when it is pressed down. Then when you wire it into your controller it will be like a button press.

Now here is the easy part, wiring the controller. I had originally used a mad catz controller but it bugged out on me and maintained a constant left arrow press. So I used the PCB from my cheap vinyl DDR pad. I got some power for an LED from one of the LED's built into the PCB, which serves as an indicator that it's plugged in. Hot glue over the solder points wouldn't hurt, and also make sure you wrap the whole thing in electrical tape when you're finished. If you want to hook up LED's to your pad that light up when an arrow is pressed, all you have to do is hook the ground (negative) leg of the LED to non-grounded side of your arrow contacts. It should ground the LED's and light them up whenever you press it. I would use an external power source for that, like a 5 volt wall adapter.

Here is a diagram of the vinyl pad PCB I drew up. I traced the contacts for each button. All you have to do is ground (GND) the button contact that you want to use and it will register a button press. Before you solder too the PCB you will have to scrape the black stuff off of the contacts or else the solder will not stick. Keep in mind that this is a top view, the contacts are on the other side.

If you do decide to use a generic controller like this one, then this is how you wire it. This is the controller that failed on me after only a few plays. It helps to use some flux on the area you are soldering to. Always solder to the part of the button pad that is not common between all of the buttons. Follow the traces, the common one will be Ground. Solder one wire to that also, you will need it just as importantly. I think I forgot to in this pic.

Here is what the bottom looks like. I drilled holes through the bottom instead of through the boards, but if you plan ahead you should not have to do it this way. I used wire connectors because solder refused to stick to the heavy gauge copper wire, even with a 100watt iron. All the wires are stapled to the board with a staple gun.

Nothing a little Duct Tape can't fix :]

Here's where the controller plug comes out, and the red LED is shining there too. Those two buttons are for X and Start to navigate menus. The japanese versions use O to select instead of X though, so if you forget a button then you might have to hot swap controllers for a quick fix.

Here's a shot of the final product. I used the arrows from my vinyl pad, but there are arrows available for download on the net if you look a little.

A little close up.

This is what happens if you use the middle contacts under your arrow, but this was before I used some plywood to reinforce the arrow. Before I noticed the crack, I heard a squeaking noise coming from the pad. Beware.