MameCab to home built ddr pad
First off I want to extend a big thank you to all of those who have posted their home built DDRpads on the web. Especially Riptide for the great videos and to the DDRhomepad website for their great instructions. I went into this project thinking I am going to break the $100.00 barrier for a homebuilt pad. That is before I went and had to find plexiglass and plywood, and of course those infamous corner brackets. I also wanted a 6 button pad with the top directional buttons. I obviously failed at meeting the under $100 goal.
In my area, a 2' x 4' sheet of 1/4" plexi cost $32 and a 4' x 8' x 3/4" sheet of plywood was $30. Those 2" corner brackets were 3.29 for a packet of 2 and I needed 12 packets of those which would of cost $39. Had to cut the brackets first, I was not going to make the limit with 40 dollars in brackets. So I went to the local Farm supply store and purchased 2' x 2' in 22 gauge sheet metal for $13, with a little elbow grease I would cut a lot of the cost out of this already.
I am not one to follow the crowd, but to take a little from each webpage I read, and come up with something original in design, at least at this point, I have not seen another frame built like this. Also I am not hooking this pad directly to a playstation, but to my homebuilt arcade cabinet through an Ipac which is a keyboard encoder. I will be using the stepmania software which is an opensource dance/rhythm game project. I don't have to have an exact replica of the arcade version dance pad, but something that is accurate and reliable and withstand heavy abuse.
