The DDR homepad building and softpad modding thread! (HUGE TOPIC)

Score indeed, do you have a multimeter? Seems like alot of wires for a single dance pad.
I'm assuming there are 6 active buttons and 6 connections for ground, the multimeter will be helpful, you also need a pair of wire strippers, a soldering iron, a roll of solder, a used or broken PIU PS2 dance pad and patience (seems like you have 14 wires).

Strip all the wires back, use the multimeter to check resistance between the wires, you should have very high resistance between all the wires, if any of them have near 0 resistance between them, then they are connected like a common ground connection in the pad (I'd totally do all this for you just to help out if I lived nearby). Then you'll want someone to step on buttons, you need to figure out which two wires go to each button. You will eventually find two wires that when someone steps on each button the resistance goes from a very high number to near 0.

Identify which wires go to each button because you'll need this information when you solder your controller. If you manage to figure out all 6 buttons and all your ground, then it's soldering time. Open up the PIU dance pad and remove all the thin tape connections, you'll see that all the connections are labelled for PIU control box awesomeness!! So you simply match your Left / Right / Up / Down wires to those little nodes on the dance pad, if you know how to solder ignore this and go to town, if not then plug in your soldering iron, unroll the solder and heat it directly onto the wire until you get a nice shiny silver coat, then heat it again right onto the node of the corresponding button on the control circuit board. Solder ALL your ground wires onto the ground node, make sure all your solder joints are tight, blow them cool then tug them firmly to make sure they don't break off (a bad connection will loosen over time). Then screw it back together and you now have your PS2 dance pad.

Check out this guide, the biggest difference is he uses a knock-off dance pad instead of the official PIU PS2 dance pad, the generic dance pads all have the NOT EASY TO SOLDER connections, the PIU PS2 dance pad has perfect solder points that hold very well over time and just make it wonderful to work with. He also will have alot more connections than you since he soldered all 9 arrows to the controller, you'll probably just do the four arrows and Start and X.

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=piu+ps2+controller+circuit+board&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1280&bih=933&tbm=isch&tbnid=iJm6Z6356MN2xM:&imgrefurl=http://www.sinistarddr.com/pumpbox.html&docid=WIxitVvr9iyW_M&w=819&h=614&ei=PhE-TrK1JYGCtgfM9I2eDw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=400&vpy=94&dur=795&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=93&ty=111&page=1&tbnh=140&tbnw=190&start=0&ndsp=27&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0

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I have a multimeter, but I don't know what to set it to. It has settings for 200ohms to 2000k ohms.

Also, how would I determine which button is to which set of wires? Just step on a button and see if two wires show any change? There are 15 wires.

I didn't have a PIU pad ready, but I happened to have a spare softpad laying around and when I opened up it's control box it also had labeled contacts, so I'm going to try to wire it to that. Right now I have all the materials I need, I just can't figure out what wires go to what contacts.

The setting doesn't matter, we're looking at the difference between INFINITY and 0 (an open connection and a closed connection), so the fact that you'll max out the 200ohm and the 200kohm doesn't matter. Have someone else (to make it quicker) step on the arrows until you see two that make a change, that's how our buttons work, they are OFF or ON, it's either air between them or a solid connection (until we get into the world of analog).

15 wires is alot, are they all color coded? Is it possible that the pad was re-wired and you now have alot of spare wires that aren't connected to anything? The other thing you can do is take your arrows apart and see if you can tell which wires go to ground and which go to the arrows. Either way will take you some time but be patient, the good thing about taking it apart is you'll learn how it works and you may need to clean it. I couldn't find a pinout your pad looks like many of the generic metal dance pads that sell for $200-$400, you may even need to tighten the bar or do some other maintenance IDK since I have only had Cobalt Flux before building my own. It's also possible the pad is damaged and the wires need to be replaced, don't fret because if you have a spare ethernet cable then you have everything you need to replace all the wires, just stay calm these things are big, heavy, and simple. But you absolutely need to figure out all the wires before you can connect it to your controller.

Actually 15 wires, I bet the pad had a pre-wired 15pin D-Sub cable installed like this one:
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=15+pin+d'sub&hl=en&prmd=ivns&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1280&bih=933&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=3809562027682663885&sa=X&ei=ubo_TsjICcqztwfJ5bm_Cg&ved=0CJcBEPMCMAI
Then they just used the wires they needed, so you should have lots of spare wires. If it's wired efficiently, you should only have 6 active buttons and 1 ground wire and 8 spares that will do nothing.

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All the same, I'd choose something closer to 200kohm over the 200ohm setting, just because wires do have internal resistance. You might get *some* numbers with 200ohm, as opposed to infinity vs. zero. Ease of use more than anything.

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Here's a better picture of the wire.



I'll have to try having somebody else press a button while I check wires. I haven't had any luck getting anything to show up on my multimeter yet. It just shows 1, so I'm going to assume I'm not doing something right.

To cheat, you can tie a bunch of wires together (hold their contacts together in your fingers) and see if you can't find something.
Like grab half in one hand and the other half in the other hand.
That short green one is probably your ground, try grouping all the OTHER wires together and have someone step on a button with one lead of your multimeter connected to the big grouping and the other to the green wire.

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I tried that on 200k ohms, and still my multimeter only shows the number 1. I also tried to take apart the panels but there's wood underneath the sensor and foam that I can't remove. I tried to take apart the bottom, but after I removed the foam padding I realized that the metal frame lips over the wood so it can't be removed.

This thing is really stubborn.

=/

EDIT:
Also, I can't take the metal frame off because it's attached using these weird screws that aren't phillips or flathead or torx or octagons or anything. They're just circles.

The number 1?
Do you know how to measure resistance with a multimeter? When you connect both leads of your multimeter together do you get 0Ohms? When you have your multimeter leads separated (not touching any wires at all) do you get a maxed out reading?
I have no idea what you mean by it reads the number 1...

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I watched a few tutorials when you mentioned I should use one, so I get the gist of how to do it, but it's just not working for me. When I connect the leads it briefly shows other numbers, then gets to 0 after a second. I've tried many combinations of wires and pressed the buttons while trying as well, and still got no result.

I guess 1 means the reading is out of range or it's not reading anything.

some have 1 as not doing anything and any other reading as there's a circuit there i think.

basically if you can connected it and it changes from what it normally sits at with no circuit, there's a circuit.

incidentally, it looks like a TX series pad. Not the most fantastic things but damnit for 25 dollars that's absolutely golden!

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If you can't get any results on the wiring the only thing I can think of is taking it all apart and actually look at all the contacts and connections. You may have a dead dance pad that you'll have to re-wire and you'll have to take it all apart to do that. I've never dealt with a TX pad before, just be careful you don't damage something.

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AFAIK they use those copper squares with the two seperated tracks on them.
Should be easy enough to fix if there is anything wrong, it'd jsut be an issue of getting at the wires i imagine.

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Can I get some advice in modding a RedOctane Ignition 2.0 pad for better sensitivity? I've had this thing for years as it crapped out on me barely a few weeks after buying from RO's online store and it has been wasting away since. I know it has to have some type of life in it and it is the only viable pad I can take to my dorm when I leave for college because the foam will help muffle the noise and lessen the vibrations from play, but it can't functional properly at all.

what's busted about it? specifically? There's not too much you can do with foam pads, since really for the most part they're just ddr soft pads with hard foam stuffed underneath them (speaking in its simplest form anyway)

what's busted about it? specifically? There's not too much you can do with foam pads, since really for the most part they're just ddr soft pads with hard foam stuffed underneath them (speaking in its simplest form anyway)

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Buy a new one?
You can't really do much with disposable dance pads, they are designed with a soft foam between the arrows, so that when you step on a button when you lift your foot the soft foam will push the button apart to break the connection. The soft foam is cheap and the wiring is cheap, over time the foam will break apart and not serve it's purpose and the wiring will fall apart and you'll just end up with a non-functioning or a poorly-functioning pad.

You could always bring a metal dance pad and place dense foam pieces underneath it, like these:
http://www.softtiles.com/?gclid=CJXygJbb2KoCFQat7QodUmny6g

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I cannot bring my CF because I need a new control box and metal pads are bad in dorms. Are you sure I can't do something with the wires to at least help gameplay? I've seen all of these people with Ignition pads that could do very well o difficult songs, but my Ignition is just a waste of money.

It does the usual soft pad things like ghost steps, unresponsive 90% of the time it isn't doing a ghost step, etc.

I doubt it will be a wiring issue.

As i say, the ignition is effectively just a soft pad with those hard foam pieces (as hellrazor linked to) stuck under it and zipped up in a neat package. The likely issues are going to be ripped or torn or folded tape switches or degraded foam between them, which can cause sticks and ghost steps and such.

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And I suppose I can't do much about those then? Or can I still cut it open and fix them?

Try reading this FAQ

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~balazer/ddr_soft_pad_faq/

Most likely, your pad isn't worth the effort to repair. Considering pads go pretty cheap nowadays ($10-$20?), just buy one and duct tape it to a plywood board. However, I have heard complaints about the quality of new pads being bad, so watch out.

Edit:Found a Repair FAQ

http://www.ddr-pad-fix.tk/

Thanks! I'm going to attempt to get some worth out of this thing. If it doesn't work, well at least I tried.