The Pad Be Done!

Well, it took all of sunday, but the pad is finally done. For months, I had the frame just sitting in my basement, because I figured it would take forever to put the arrows together and get it all tested and soldered together. I was right, but the final product is worth my prodigious effort. I took pictures of the whole process, each piece in a step-by-step manner, so I can do a writeup and share the design with everyone who wants to make use of it.

As you can see, my final pad has no arrows or any pictures at all. I liked the two-tone effect, so I put white paper between the lucite and declared the pad finished. I’ll admit that I had to take it apart about six times due to tape coming undone, bad soldering on one arrow, not enough weather-stripping, and various other problems until tests finally proved 100% successful. Fortunately the pad feels exactly like an arcade pad, unfortunately that means I have to play with shoes on, and sometimes I get misses because I step on a bracket instead of the arrow. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? I wanted an arcade replica, and now I have one.

It is the yay.