Sometime in late 2003, I became addicted to DDR (Dance-Dance-Revolution). I immediately got a cheap ($10) PlayStation soft-mat to use as a controller, and a copy of the game. But soon I realized that the soft pad wouldn't make the cut, since as I moved faster, the pad would slide all over the floor. Duct taping the mat down helped, but only for a few rounds. I decided I had to do something...

A decent hard pad (one made with polycarbonated plastic for the arrows) runs a few hundred dollars. Always trying to save a buck, I decided what the hey, I bet I could make one for less! I drew up some plans, and I decided it would actually be pretty easy.

All that you need is an old cheap soft ddr pad or an extra controller (to steal the controller interface mechanism from), some wood, some sheet metal, plastic, wire, and aluminum foil. I went out to home depot, and gathered up the parts. I ended up getting a big piece of pegboard also, which I used as a backing for the entire project, since wood would have been heavier, thicker, and more expensive.

I cut the pegboard into a 33"x33" square, and also made 6 11"x11" pegboard tiles. These tiles would provide the extra lift necessary to make the buttons level with the wooden stationary panels (I cut 3 11"x11" squares of plywood). As you can see in the diagrams, the button construction is quite simple. There are aluminum foil strips laid out - one is ground, and one is a positive contact. When the button is depressed, the sheet metal under the plastic closes the circuit. There is high density weather stripping (also from Home Depot) which holds up the buttons and provides resistance. I got corner braces from Home Depot to hold the buttons down. I used GE Lexan LX 10 plastic (I gave up using the glass cutter and used my rotary saw). Then I screwed (or glued, in the case of the foil, weather stripping, etc.) down everything.

All the of the contacts are hooked up to wires (I even color coded them!), which go to the controller up front ("borrowed" from an old cheap soft dance pad). The controller used to plug into my PSOne, but now it plugs into my DDRBox (which runs StepMania under MacOS X).

----End----- (June 25, 2004)

The photo gallery!

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