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

Looks AMAZING dude! How long did it take you to make it?

---

about 30 minutes, but that is because i already had my pad stapled to my wood. Sadly tho, I have so much weather-all and duck-tape still it looks like I didn't use any of it at all

That's great. I hope I can go ahead and make mine soon. Because I'm so tired of the bogus scores from the soft pad sliding around.

---

The pad I got didn't even had much issues with it, I did it so I won't fold it. And I am pleased to say this was a success! I got a A (910,XXX) on Healing-D-Vision Which is the best I have ever done

I'm so glad for you!! That's so great. Keep up the good work!

---

Thanks! I hope your mod works just as well!!!

where's 8ftmetalhead...

I'm thinking of making a pad of wooden base, so basically there'll be like 2 wooden slabs the size of a DDR pad, one of them will be cut to 5 squares and then it'll be put on top of the other slab and then they will be fixed with idk, nails or something.

what got me thinking is which design for the sensors that's easy to construct and robust, able to withstand hours of playing. Any suggestions with this design? Or would you like to point me at a better, easier to build design?

Also i'm not feeling like buying metal sheets so prolly will cover the wood with some kind of hard plastic.

oh yeah i like metric units.

---

Most any sensor design you're able to fit in there should work. With a frameless design (ie just a sensor sandwich) you'll likely be using the good old 'one sheet of metal on each side, step on panel, make a circuit' types, whereas if you add a frame between the two you'll have the freedom to add more complex ones.

That said, if you've got a router and are able to devise ones that you could have set into the base board, then that could work. I recall one of the old blu shark designs used arcade sensors with some small pieces of wood or plastic or something over the top to depress the sensors when they were stood on (since if you simply stuck arcade sensors in, you'd have uniform pressure going over them and probably wouldn't make contact).

have a looksie here at the ideas.
http://aaronin.jp/boards/viewtopic.php?t=10066&start=20

---

For those that are trying to make a XBOX 360/PC pad I wired mine like this:
http://i.imgur.com/RzocCSW.jpg

This was after I threw some hot glue on it to prevent the two leads from ever creating contact with each other.

http://www.slagcoin.com/joystick/pcb_diagrams/360_diagram6.jpg
Is great for showing which side is the common and which side is the signal.

How long does it take to build a dance pad? I'm 15 and I'm looking to build one myself.

depending on how good you are and how precise you want to get your measurements and such, plus availability of tools and materials, perhaps a weekend? I built mine in a couple days with help.

---

I still haven't modded mine yet I don't have time with school and all. Spring Break maybe?...

---

Spring Break's always a good time if you're not doing anything/going anywhere for the duration of your offtime

---

Sorry to make an account just to bump this thread but it seems like the best place to ask.

I'm currently working on a homepad, it's at this stage:


(Pre-sheet metal dry-fit)

I went to buy my acrylic the other day and the guys at the plastics shop said that anyone jumping around on acrylic must have a wish to pull shards of it out of their feet.

My question is: Are two layers of 5mm acrylic really enough to handle this sort of abuse? They suggested I use polycarb instead, but it was out of my price range and seemed to flex too much to give the proper arcade feel anyway.

What kind of material should I aim for if I want to be able to let heavier people (100kg+) play on this thing as well?

I would just stick the plastics over another block of mdf, but I really want to add lighting to my build...

Official DDR/ITG/PIU pads are made out of Lexan. It's a derivative of polycarbonate that holds its shape better. If you make panels from polycarbonate or acrylic they'll end up sagging.

It might be pricier but it's worth it. Otherwise I would suggesting you build something like Cobalt Flux where there is no empty space beneath the panels.

Just want to throw out there, ITG and DDR panels aren't made of the exact same material iirc (ITG panels have more of a bounce to them while DDR tends to be pretty rigid. Kind of using this post for reference).

---

Ah, you are correct. Konami's panels are Lucite and I think Andamiro's (ITG/PIU) are the ones that are Lexan. Lexan is based off of Polycarbonate (the stuff they make CDs and DVDs out of) and Lucite is based off of acrylic. In both cases the intent is to make the material stronger while still making it shatter resistant. Either or would work fine for a stage with open cavities under the panels.

Just don't do what the dreaded Namco bootleg cabinets did and have purely acrylic panels, they don't last very long.

Cheers for the response guys, I was about to just go buy off-the-shelf acrylic. Guess I need to shop around a bit more.

Would it be better to have a thick layer of lucite, then the graphic, then a thin layer of lucite on top, or both layers the same thickness, I wonder...

Konami puts a foil decal on the very bottom of the panel then laminates a layer of plastic over it to delay wear. Though if you've seen a DDR stage of any amount of use the sensor brackets tend to cut through pretty quickly. Dunno if it's possible for two pieces of Lucite to stick together if you try to sandwich them with something else in-between. If they came apart the panel would more or less hold together but the friction would destroy the decal.

Hmn... I was just going off of riptide's design, the problem is that there really isn't a several-months-later followup to any of these builds, except one on youtube for a different-but-similar design which showed that the decals were all moved out of alignment through use, and a post in this thread that shows a snapped pad with no further information.

So the foil's on the bottom of official acrylic pads, huh? I can't believe I never noticed before.

In that case I might just go all out and imitate the official machines. 10mm lucite with a laminated layer for the graphic.