Bunker Project Log

I’ve done it, two Cobalt Flux pads with 360 control boxes. It wasn’t cheap, but I’m a sucker for HD output (and Xbox Live Achievements, even though I totally suck at DDR).

In the end, all you really need is a soldering iron and solder, a screwdriver, a short length of Cat5 networking cable, a Male 9-pin D-sub connector (276-1537 at Radio Shack), and a MadCatz Beat Pad.

Here’s how it’s done:

Take out all of the external screws on the white plastic shell, and open it up. Try to disturb as little as possible as you do this.

Look closely, there’s a pad in the darkness!

I’ve already complained about how Cobalt Flux has hozed the DDR action two Bunker Parties in a row.

But, I’ve decided that I am not going to be a victim! I am going to take my life back!

Since the control box on one of my CF pads is shot, I am going to replace it by hacking together a 360 Control Box.

Unfortunately, this means sacrificing an existing 360 dance pad. In this case, it will be a MadCatz Beat Pad.

The finished product:

I’ve been bitching about the cable bundle for a while now, and finally decided to post it up at avsforum.com?to see what the AV masters could come up with. One of the users over there, rgroves, suggested that I look at Checkers. So I did, and immediately requested a quote, mentioning the situation.

I got a call back within the hour, and I found myself ordering “The Fastlane“.

It was roughly an hour later that rgroves responded to my thread suggesting that I just build something rather that buy something that would “probably look hideous in your room”.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bD4_nSK2Mc]

I’ve been really slacking on this, and pretty much every other project in the log, so I figured I better do something.

I pulled the guitar open again to fix the mistakes I mentioned in the last installment, and Pottse helped take some footage of the guitar in action. You’ll notice a few things:

1) The pedal is really loud.
2) I’m not very good at playing with it.
3) I use the Star Power switch at the head of the guitar by pressing it against my cheek at 0:54 and 1:23.
4) I still haven’t figured out the whammy, but I’ve got a bunch of ideas.

The Shocker?used the 9V battery connector, a relay, a capacitor,?a transformer, and probably one or?two more parts that I can’t remember.?It basically charged the capacitor, then somehow tripped the relay, then charged it again with a nasty clicking noise.?I zapped my sister a few times,?and was hooked.

It was a month after Version 2.0 popped out of Mrs. G’s belly, and?ma and pa had come to do the things that grandparents do when their children have children. My dad and I were sitting on his truck’s trailer hitch, shooting the breeze. Him with his Busch Lite, me with a Diet A&W Root Beer. Then he looks at me quite seriously and says, “Y’know?son, If you ever need anything, you know you can call and we’ll come out and help.”

So I think about this for a second, and I say, “Y’know dad, there is something you can help me out with.”

I love audiobooks. I have a 30 minute commute, and road rage… or I had road rage until I discovered Audible!

Now, I actually look forward to traffic jams! My car has become a whole new venue of individual entertainment!

In fact, my company is moving offices so my commute is cut in half, and I’m worried that I won’t get my book time.

Mrs. G and I tried to watch Renaissance?tonight, but we only got 20 minutes in before Version 2.0 (the gigantic 4 month-old boy super-smiley blob-thingy)?decided it was screamy time. Wifey took one for the team, and I decided to get back to the guitar.

I’ve been trying to come up with a good Whammy mechanism, and what I’m settling on (but still haven’t quite figured out how to do) is some kind of motion sensing thingy.?Since this is the goal, my first priority?is to disable the motion-activated Star Power switch. Since?Star Power is also activated by one of the buttons on the guitar face, I can retain the functionality by?moving that switch somewhere easily activated by the fret hand.

In the old days, “going out” meant getting dinner at some?snotty Sushi bar “downtown”, seeing a movie, maybe a play, maybe even going to an art gallery. The second after buying a house, “going out” means chain restaurants, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and Target. The microsecond after having kids, “going out” means anything that happens after getting in your car, with at least one of them crying. Always. This “going out” is for a little variety,?a slight break from “being at home”,?where at least one of them is crying. Always.

After putting the rodents to bed, Mrs. G, Pottse, the Berserker and I all sat down to watch Hot Fuzz, in HD no less, on the 360’s HD add-on. I could whine about how M$ had?screwed?me for months with?the crappy Dynamic Range Control?bug (fix here)?and how I really want Blu-Ray to fail because it is associated with the PS3, and how I bought 300 on Blu-Ray anyway, because it was cheaper, but I won’t.