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

Well I did it today and i played for 6 hours. I played expert and for the most part I FC every song i played that wasn't a 10. And I black flagged A damn song... (still mad about it)


It has nothing to do with wires actually. What happens is that the soft stuff (I don't know what it is called, it is what is in the middle) gets moved to much from folding etc. and it needs to be placed back. If you look around, you can see whats inside of one but its nothing to big.

All I've seen is that a staple or two gets out like every hour or so. All I did was re-staple it and its fine. The best part is that it doesn't move at all.

Lol , I wish I was good enough to even GET a black flag! LOL! I still haven't gotten a triple AAA yet
Hmm...you said you used Staples. I've heard about nailing it....think that'll work? And duct taping the edges.

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avoid nails for sure, I learned from trying. the staples and tape should do fine

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all I did was staples from my staple gun, I don't have short nails, and tape can get kinda messy. And don't feel bad, I had never gotten a AAA before also, I'm working on it tho.

Lol thankyou for telling me that!! Haha , it would have been a bad mistake if I did nail it though. xD

Thanks! I want to earn it the old fashioned way. I heard on the new DDR arcade mix for 2014, that they'll have goods to count towards a combo! I want to earn it the original way. Nothing but perfects and marvelous ;) . Even on Supernova 2, you don't necessarily HAVE to get a full combo to get a AAA. UNHEARD OF!!

Lol. Anyways, I'm going to head to bed, I'll talk to you people tomorrow. ;)

Peace~~

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Well if you have nails that wont go pass the wood than that can also work for the corners, but tomorrow when I get home, I promise to post pics.

Sorry for not going on here yesterday, my wifi was down. Good news tho, I got the picture.
http://zenius-i-vanisher.com/pictures/9117-1358288820.jpeg
The white lines are where you should put staples at. If you have any other question, just ask . Well I'm off to take 2 of my finals so i'll be back later.

Thanks so much!! My mat came in the mail yesterday! I still have to go to home depot and buy some wood though. Thanks!!

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By the way, I say go for the bigger staples because if you get the short ones, it will keep popping out. I need to get the long ones next time I go, I lost about 30 staples by now.

Okay. Thanks for the advice! I've been playing alot since my mat came, and now my ankles feel a little sore. But I'm going to try and play with the balls of my feet.

I might be heading to home depot as early as tomorrow. I just have to check measurements for the wood again. I've also heard of getting like some kind of plastic (I forgot the name of it) to cover over the mat. But If I do that, I guess I can't staple it. I'll figure something out.

Again, thankyou thankyou thankyou for everything!! I love this community , everyone's so helpful and friendly

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Yeah its great here. By the way, I think what you are talking about plexiglass, but with that, I don't really know anything about it..

oh. ok. thanks

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plexiglass is often not flexible enough for use on pads. Speaking from experience, even thin plexi gives rise to alot of ghost steps and such.

The most suggested substance is floor vinyl or some such, flexible yet durable enough to withstand being stepped on.

You can still staple it but you'd likely need a heavy duty-ish staplegun.

As for how softpads break, yes it does tend to be from folding as the constant flexing of the pads leads to eventual breakages either in the tape switches or the vinyl covering.

Also to clear up any misconceptions about how those softpads work - it's a sandwich. Two pieces of very thin plastic sheeting (like, greaseproof paper or tinfoil kind of thin) covered in conductive tracks, seperated by a sheet of very thin foam that looks like swiss cheese. The usual breakdown of this is when the foam starts to compress permanently, the tapeswitches constantly make contact, or they make inconsistent contact in the case of broken tapeswitches. In either case, you end up with a pad that konks out alot, and in both cases a fix is worth less than the time it would take to do it. In the same time you could figure out the base of a hardpad, so you'd be better off spending your time doing that.

Anyway, the idea ehind the plexi/vinyl/whatever is that when you staple the pad down, because the pad is unable to move the stress placed on the top layer can either shift the tapeswitches or tear any of the layers of the pads and cause breakdowns or shifts. By placing a flexible layer over the top, you shift almost all of the stress to that top layer while the layers underneath are pretty much protected.

So yeah that's the point of modding softpads.
Also better sensitivity, if you choose to do what some people do and stick a few layers of tape under each sensor on the plywood where you staple the board to.

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Thanks for the breakdown!

I found this tutorial too. And this person sort of said what you were saying about using flexible material.

http://www.angelfire.com/pro2/softpadmod/

And the sensitivity is something i wondered about too. After I mod it, will it still be sensitive enough? But the tape thing...ahh. Thanks for clearing that up.

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Wow, I love this mod, I might do all that this weekend! I have enough time because I just got done with the finals so I'm out for friday and monday. I'm gonna read up and see if I can, thank you for posting that!

Lol I might do it soon too!!! You're welcome .

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@ Kinn, that's one of the original tutorials that this topic was supposed to save. i'll just slip a copy into my archive lol

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lol Awesome!

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Well I went to my hardware shop and sadly I couldn't find "hardwood floor covering" so I got Weather-ALL Plastic Sheeting for $10 and I got duck tape, Hope it goes well!

Yea! I hope it works well for you too!! It'll be awesome when you're finished dude!

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Well I did it.... sort of.... anyways, it feels great. Here is the picture to see.