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Question about building/wiring a dance pad to my Mame Cab
oldskoolcade:
Okay, so I've got my wife interested in my Mame project again by showing her the line of DDR-like games for PC (i.e. stepmania). So I've been doing some reading and I'm gonna give building a dance pad a shot. Now almost every setup I've seen so far is designed to interface with a PS2 or XBOX, and that using it for a PC would involve a USB adapter of sorts....my question I pose to you, can I circumvent this conversion by simply wiring my 4 dance arrows to inputs on my Keywiz instead?
If that's possible, the only thing standing in my way (aside from the actual construction), would be - how do I wire this thing? I mean it was easy with my buttons and joystick (connect one wire to ground, one to the NO connector). Anyone have any ideas how to wire the pads so that when they're up, no connection - when pressed, it registers a connection.
Thanks gang!
Bgnome:
if you are running the games through mame, then you can map the controls to whatever you want, including keywiz. if you are runnning the actual pc games, i am unsure whether they support keyboard inputs. i have always heard of people connecting psx dance pads via adapters.
to build one from scratch, the trickiest part is to devise a method of detecting a press on one of those buttons. some folks have actually placed pushbuttons under their panels. i have heard of others using aluminum strips and springs/foam to support the panels. there are probably a ton of ideas and writeups out there on the net.
itismejs:
If you are creating a "hard" pad...as opposed to the soft mats...if would be pretty simple/cheap. Just make yer box and put some microswitch buttons under it.
crashwg:
FYI it may be cheaper to buy one of the premade hardpads available on the net...
I've already got like $120 into mine and I still don't have lexan nor the artwork for the panels...
SteveJ34:
I realize this is BYOAC but for a metal pad, I'd sure take a look at:
http://www.redoctane.com
Even their hard foam pads look pretty durable. I have seen the metal pad at Fry's and I think I have seen the hard foam pads at Gamestop to avoid shipping.
My daughter wants a dance pad for xmas and I was considering building one in my history but with this metal pad at 199 its hard to think I could manufacturer something less expensive.
There's a web somewhere that could probably be found via google where someone had fashioned one of these and had pretty good pics and descriptions as to how they went about it. This was before metal pads like the one above became available via retail.
Easiest interface will probably be via PSX-USB adaptor then map the controls to whatever game you are trying to interface with as though it were a joy.
My 2 cents sometimes at least worth its weight in pennies....
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