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Page 4
Metal DDR pads

Electronics, wiring diagrams, soldering the controllers.

Metal These are the metal button parts, at 9 1/2 inches square. I soldered the pairs of my CAT5 cable to them. The wires are about five feet long, and through this whole process I am really careful about protecting them, since they can break easily.
Red Octane This is a stock Redoctane metal pad controller. It is very well built, but twice as much as liksang. If you use this you get X-Box controller also, big whoopty doo. The goal with either is to add a button for "X" to it.
Lik Sang This is a liksang pad controller. The hole with the arrow is where the button for "X" will go. The black and red wires that are loose are soldered to the board underneath. One for "X" and one to ground.
Red Octane This is a completed Redoctane metal pad controller. The green and blue wires are "X" and ground. They go to the momentary contact switch (on the left in the photo).
Two types done The two finished products, complete with plenty of "x" button and rugged enough to kick around so no more picking up anything.
Complete connection I would make a control pad like Redoctane or Lik Sang with DB15 connectors. Much easier to solder and work with. The pad has to have a female end to mate with these.
Male and Female db15 DB-15 db15 wiring diagram for the redoctane and lik-sang products. The controllers are male, so the ends you create on the pads are female db-15 with hoods. Radio shack has these parts for a couple bucks.
Pin Two: X Button
Pin Four: O Button
Pin Eleven: Right
Pin Twelve: Left
Pin Thirteen: Down
Pin Fourteen: Up
Pins 3, 5, and 15: Ground
I connected all my ground wires together and soldered them to the mount for the metal hood of the connector rather than trying to ground through a pin. I ignored the Circle button, since I am only using four directions and the X button to select a song.
Finished pad connection The solid steel closures for the female 15 pin connector. I filled the whole cavity full of hot glue to insulate and protect the connections. (Remember this goes on the floor)
Holes are right out If you MUST do it the old way.. I tried to follow DDRHomepad design by drilling holes for the wires to solder. But alas, the smallest bit I could find was 1/16 inch and it BROKE THE COPPER OFF! This controller is only good for practice soldering.
Soldering points The hole idea may work with other cards, or you may be able to find a much smaller bit. I could not, so I soldered the wires directly to the contacts. I got some small perfect solders right on the little circles, and the weight of the wire BROKE THE COPPER OFF! So attempt #3, Use the whole controller area for soldering. I cut the board connections where the x marks are, clipped off the shoulder buttons and used them for the ground.
Finished controllers Again I used a hot glue gun around the wire where it came out the front of the controller. I also broke off all the plastic parts inside that held the thumbpad. That way the solders don't get smooshed. The wires are attached with tape to protect the connections from movement.
  Get a bunch of friends for this part, it is fun. We put some plastic between the two sheets of metal and held the corners out to test contacts. One person per direction is a ton of fun!


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