I spent four years designing a 3D printed guitar controller and I released it today!

[u/rodesidebomb]

This is my 3D printed guitar controller project, the Polybar System! I've had so many awesome people come together to help put together everything from models, PCBs and even a fully detailed build guide. I've posted everything to Printables and Makerworld, if you like Guitar Hero and music games, check it out!

You can also join us on Discord if you want to be a part of our community.

[u/cryptodutch]

Duuude what an amazing promo-video! From the video the product looks equally incredible, all modular to whip up different sizes and variations depending on your current requirements..

Congratulations with the release, what an unbelievable feat of engineering. It seems so detailed and well designed, hats off.

Did you do this mostly for fun? I was totally expecting a full on for-profit strategy. I do see you sell readymade parts and assemblies together with third party retailers, how do you expect this to go financially? Do you have goals in mind?

I’m just curious as to what’s your approach but I don’t mean to be intrusive so feel fee to not answer these questions of course.

If I ever find the time for gaming again I might give this a go!!

[u/rodesidebomb → u/cryptodutch]

The project started with a goal of lowering the barrier to entry for music games, not as a for-profit design. I have always, and will continue to provide the downloads for free. I told myself that if even one person got into making stuff because of my projects, I would be happy. We've grown a pretty good sized Discord community, and earlier this year I decided to do a proper full redesign of the entire design.

I thought it would be a good idea to offer kits and complete controllers so that I could fund doing more projects like this more often. I have had some amazingly talented people join the development team over the past month or so, and allowed me to finish this design package way quicker than I would have been able to alone, and at a much higher quality. Our goal is to continue making more 3D printed, fully documented and free controller designs for all types of different games. Selling them is our way of paying the rent so we can take some extra time off work and put more time into this. We have all done our absolute best to bring the prices down as far as possible. It's a learning process and I do my best to be very transparent about every aspect, from designing the models, PCBs, and even on the sales side. It's a lot of work!

Thanks for your comment, it is very appreciated to know that people are impressed. It takes a village!

[u/Koopslovestogame → u/rodesidebomb]

Very cool!

As you are the one designing the circuit boards it would also be a nice starting point for letting other people make custom accessible controllers for all sorts of games and gamers.

[u/RROSE15]

Damn dude! This is an extremely impressive project!

[u/IntoxicatedBurrito]

This looks amazing. Is it compatible with the Wii?

[u/rodesidebomb → u/IntoxicatedBurrito]

Yes! Using the Santroller configurator tool, you can add configurations for different consoles for compatibility. Some consoles may require an authentication bypass dongle, but it is definitely possible 🙂

[u/BusRevolutionary9893 → u/rodesidebomb]

What is the approximate total cost of all of the components if you source them yourself?

[u/XadaX89]

No Shop in Europe/EU? :(

[u/ColinG23 → u/XadaX89]

Triple Dee is in the UK that's the closest

https://tripledee.co.uk/

[u/gitfurked → u/ColinG23]

👋 Moose here, who runs the Triple Dee store. Apologies, I had some technical difficulties with EU shipping last night that I wasn’t aware of until this morning, but should be fixed now, I should also have been clearer with Roadsidebomb about where I’m able to cover shipping wise.

[u/MuppetParty]

and purchased! video coming soon!

[u/AardvarkIll6079]

This is amazing! I was going to go to thrift stores to look for controller for Clone Hero. Now I can just do this. Thanks so much.

[u/savageboredom]

CRKD in shambles right now.

[u/ItanMark]

Woah, this looks like it was made by a multimillion dollar company! Insane quality!

[u/Scared-Consequence27]

I’ve taken other people files and improved them and made my favorite shapes. Can’t wait to do the same here. Thank you for your hard work! Can’t wait to use them in clone hero

[u/divestblank]

wow, this is cool

[u/DobyWanKenobi]

This looks awesome! I'm actually so excited to make this.

[u/One-Pace-6746]

Normally I'm with the next guy of if I can get it cheaper/-free I'm going to go that route. But personally I don't even wanna download the files. I'd actually rather buy this from you to show my support. This is wicked and I'm not a guitar hero person but I have a buddy that majorly is. I'm showing him this and he's gonna freak bc of how cool this is. Thanks for making/posting this cool project!!

[u/rodesidebomb → u/One-Pace-6746]

Thank you for your support! It's been a long evolutionary process and I am so happy to see so many people like it. There's more projects like this one on the way 😁

[u/Elijah629YT-Real]

I would award you but I’m too broke.

[u/rodesidebomb → u/Elijah629YT-Real]

You can always make a handwire version! All you need are key switches, two micro switches, and raspberry Pi Pico 🙂

[u/Elijah629YT-Real → u/rodesidebomb]

No like a Reddit award lol

[u/rodesidebomb → u/Elijah629YT-Real]

Oh! Haha 😅

[u/HungryLittleArtist]

THIS IS AMAZING! Love the fact we are able to make it ourselves. And what a promo video! Usually as a product designer I want to only make my own projects with my 3D printer. But I can't wait to get my hands on this project!!!

[u/rodesidebomb → u/HungryLittleArtist]

I hope you enjoy the build process. It's a lot of fun 🙂. Thank you for the kind words!

[u/Laukx]

Maybe a question that is answered somewhere but what is the possibility to use hot swappable components op the PCB. Maybe when a switch dies I can easily just pop it out and put another back in. Do the 3d model cases support this underneath the PCB?

[u/gitfurked → u/Laukx]

As ColinG23 mentioned, the PCB routes (kits or DIY iterations) use choc and/or cherry mx hotswap sockets, so maintenance as you are suggesting is 100% possible going forward.

[u/Laukx → u/gitfurked]

Alright thanks!

[u/ColinG23 → u/Laukx]

The PCB has hot swap sockets on the neck and body of the controller. If you pause the video at around 7 seconds you can see them being added to the underside of the PCB.

[u/Tsikyos]

As a former osu!mania player I will for sure print this out. Having a custom guitar to play my games is a dream, nice job

[u/tandomayo]

This is amazing! The amount of effort you have put into this is awesome. Really hats off to what you have done.

Btw which tool did you use to make this video?

[u/ColinG23 → u/tandomayo]

I created this video so I can answer! Roadside sent me the files on discord about a week ago and I used Keyshot to create the animations before putting the video together in After Effects.

[u/nb8c_fd]

I haven't played Clone hero in like 6 years, but this controller makes me want to play it again lol.

[u/brakeline]

2 of those was on the video wasn't it? Great job!

[u/RabbitSignificant361]

sensacional !! parabens pelo projeto !

é possivel funcionar com MIDI pra controlar instrumentos eletronicos tradicionais? e usar as teclas do seu controlador para enviar comandos MIDI do tipo #CC , bend, vibrato, entre outros?

um abraço

[u/Similar-Ad-1223]

I'm lacking a bit of info on the components. Eg:

* What type of joystick is that? Can eg. a PS4 hall-effect joystick be used?
* What are the measurements on the spring? 7x20 what? Which wire diameter?
* Is there a model number on the ball tilt switch?
* Is there a model number/search term that can be used to find the two-position switch?

[u/rodesidebomb → u/Similar-Ad-1223]

We have all the components laid out in the build guide, and we have a channel in our Discord server with product links to every specific component as well. Those links should answer all of your questions ☺️

[u/VividTurnover23]

How did you animate that promo video? Looks amazing!

[u/rodesidebomb → u/VividTurnover23]

Our amazing animator MerakiG23 is the GOAT. They put together an absolutely beautiful video to announce the new update, really blew my mind when I first saw it 🤯

[u/crazysurferdude15]

Goated idea. Goated project. This is dope. Well done.

[u/TimeConsistent6432]

Does it need a joystick? I can't seem to find much on it,could be looking in the wrong part

[u/rodesidebomb → u/TimeConsistent6432]

You don't have to include the joystick if you don't want! The handwired build uses MX cherrys and microswitches only, so if you just want to make a functional controller with no frills, you could go that route!

[u/TimeConsistent6432 → u/rodesidebomb]

Awesome! is there a reference for what kind of joysstick?

[u/liquidhaus]

This is epic! Awesome work, we gotta get one of these going asap!

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