Advise on how to fix soft ddr pads

Hi Guys,

I recently installed StepMania and got a few soft DDR pads (the cheap ones).


One of them works fine, but one of them has an issue with it. I borrowed the same one from my brother, which worked fine at first, but now his one is also showing the same issue:

1) All direction pads work fine on their own
2) If I press the left arrow and bottom arrow at the same time, only the left arrow gets registered
3) If I press the right arrow and bottom arrow at the same time, only the right arrow gets registered
4) All other combinations seem to work fine (up and down, left and right, up and right etc)
5) I've tested it against two computers and they show the same response, so I'm convinced its a hardware issue.

I'm wondering if anyone has encountered this problem and knows how to fix it. I'm happy to take it apart and try resoldering things, if you can point me in the right direction.

Uh, that's a weird problem you have there. I'd guess there's some crosstalk going on with those arrow combinations and the up/down arrow input gets eaten by the left/right input, but usually it happens with an specific arrow versus all other arrows :/ so I'm not sure how to help

Issues in simultaneous arrow presses were fixed in SM5.1 (and SM5.3/Outfox perhaps) via Game Options -> Input Options -> Advanced Input Options -> Axis Fix (set to On). This setting is not present in SM5.0.12.

Isn't that to fix up+down/left+right though? He's having trouble with some diagonal 2-arrow inputs.

"cheap DDR pads"

I'd question the source of these pads first. Konami didn't make any DDR pads for PC and if you're using a console adapter (PS2 --> USB / GC --> USB) those can be have issues with remapping controls.

If they really are that cheap, it may not be worth repairing because they are so expendable.

I helped like 4 individuals who bought the same USB Dance pad (from LAZADA and Shopee) and never heard of diagonal issues (via test input) after I shared that tip.

They are cheap. They sell at like $9.09 (lowest)

Wow!! Thanks for the quick response everyone!

@razorblade, I've been checking the inputs just using the Windows Game Controller window, so this is even before it reaches any application. I've also got an identical pad that works just fine, which is why I thought it was hardware related.

Can you send me the link of the ones you got? I'm based in Australia so not sure if they'll ship to here (my initial look seems to indicate they're more SEA based)

@Czery haha yes they are the cheapest I could find on AliExpress, so wasnt expecting great quality. And now that I've got a couple of busted ones, I figured I'd try some DIY to fix it!

I just build it myself using github source. Here is the link (Windows build):

SM 5.1 (ver. 2021-04-29)