todo

lmao i'll like copy the stuff from discord in a few days. basically rolling your ddr pads because buying premade stuff is expensive (likely for a reason)

sometime in the Summer of 2024

• get the idea for these things because there are hardly accesible rhythm game arcades in Southern California

12/16/2024

• I set myself a reminder to look at this after finals.
• I composed a special document with like background info for like other people in a private channel.
• it unfortunately has some questionable content in it, but I'll include some excerpts (that image btw is from like some wiki) There's also a funny Hacker News post I found later about KONAMI sueing everyone for similar design choices. I'm pretty sure this like long yap gist took a bit to write but I didn't track that too much.

Total time spent: 1h

1/18/25

New school year. at least one of my class teaches onshape so I figured out how to cad.

Total time spent: 0h

I also remebered I have a 3D printer I can use. I did spend a bit of time cleaning some blocked sensor so it works again for another project but it's nice to actually be able to design stuff for it finally.

2/15/25

had a convo with experienced friend about supporting weight, mentioned that if you choose a good infill pattern it should be fine so you don't need to 100% infill, more like 70% infill. Total time spent: 0.25h

2/18/25

Unfortunately most printers have a print area smaller than a single square of the a pad. I briefly looked into bigger 3D printers but a lot of people basically said slow and annoying and I didn't want to get a 3D printer just for this specific thing so some creative adjustments will need to be made. For example the printer I happen to have is a CR6SE (as of writing this printer might have been obliterated off Creality's website sadly) which is a bit obscure. The build volume of that is 235 x 235 x 250 mm or also 9.25197 x 9.25197 x 9.84252 in. The side length of one square on a DDR pad to be accurate is about 11 inches. I tried fitting half a square in the print bed on the slicer but it was not really possible.

Total time spent: 1h

busy with school

5/7/25

a CAD prototype exists now (I'll have to track down when I did the stuff before there might be more hours), idk how screws work that much but I made holes using the correct tools lol . Consulted with the same experienced friend who has actually done more printed parts than me, was told give more space for the screw holes cause they'll get stuck otherwise and make some parts thicker as well as make the middle holes a bit larger to account for variability in 3D printing. Total time spent: 4h (idk I estimated this one)

5/15/25

random convo about infill patterns and deciding to go from PLA to PETG for safety and faster prototyping reasons.

Total time spent: 0h

Sometime in between

funny slicer saga when I try to switch to Orca to improve efficiency and somehow end up with lots of stringing issues. Mainly for another project but it's related to this project because printing time is valuable at this scale. Here's a picture of this one print where the software set the acceleration/travel too high and I got a staircase where there should have been a vertical wall.

5/30/25 - 6/2/25

Ordered some clear PETG filament and a new build plate from Amazon. 3x as expensive because of the uncommon area needed. Total time spent: 0h Upgraded printer with PEI surface, now prints PETG properly, super easy to remove stuff from now as well. Test print came out fine. Total time spent: 0.5h