Parts Order Arrived!

Well today was an exciting day, this morning I recieved an order from Channelbeat which contained many glorious things.

Big thanks to Denny for bank rolling these parts, it's moved the schedule up a couple of months which is wicked. Now I've officially got enough sensors, corner brackets, bolts, and arrow panels for the pad. The sensors are DDR sensors, I'd love to get Pump It Up sensors but their a big chuck more expensive. Next to them is the Corner Brackets and Bolts, these are made to be replacement parts for arcade machines so their almost exactly the same and should feel just right. Lastly I got 4 DDR replacement arrow panels, they worked out to be about the same price as I could make them for and now I don't have to go through the hassle of figuring out the graphics, I'm still keen to make custom arrow panels for the production run so we'll see what happens.

With this order it means I'm closer to having all the parts needed for the prototype.

I believe now the only parts I need to make are the corner bracket holders and the brackets to go over the sensors. I've been working with the idea that I would glue 3mm acrylic rectangles to the bottom of the arrow panels instead of using seperate brackets like an arcade machine. This has worked well on the other pad but I'm worried it puts more strain on the sensors with the panels pulling them around. Instead I'm going to go back to my original plan of creating U shaped metal brackets that sit over the sensor with grooves either side to keep it in place.

The last part that I havent talked much (at all?) about is the bar.

I plan to get a bar the same diameter as arcade bars and get it bent properly, then 2 holes will be drilled in the back section where the bar will sit. The bar will go through those holes and on the bottom will bolt onto 2 steel straps that run in a groove along the bottom towards the front of the pad. This should make the bar very solid and won't put to much stress on the wood at the back.

From here the next steps I'll be taking will be wiring the pad, doing the sheet metal, and sorting out how to paint it.

Please post any questions you have, I'll be doing a video soon to show the working pad and maybe talk about some things.