Afterburner Replacement Panels

I was wondering if there was anyone or anyplace that was still selling replacement panels for the Afterburner Metal Dance Pad by RedOctane. My down and my up panels are cracked, and I would be interested in stocking up on replacement panels seeing as how they are nearly impossible to find. Also, is there any sign that RedOctane will ever open their online store again and possibly begin selling dance mats and the accessories? I bought my Afterburner almost a year ago, and a month before their store shut down.
Help would be appreciated.
~Margo

I've only owned Cobalt Flux pads, and my homemade pads are very similar to the Cobalt Flux pads, so forgive my ignorance.

Since you say your panel cracked, I assume you mean there's a plastic cover over the sensors, possibly with a graphic image attached. Can you take this panel out of the pad (it should screw apart). Since it's cracked it's one of the weaker plastics like Plexiglass (because Lexan will not crack even under extreme conditions, and from what I know of Afterburners they are made cheaply with foil like the TX1000's). If you can take this plastic piece out, measure it's thickness and bring it to Home Depot, see if you can find a very close piece of plastic Plexiglass or Lexan that is almost the same thickness. Buy it, use a table saw to cut it to the proper square shape, use a drill bit that fits perfectly in the screw holes, and use a clamp or two to hold the pieces directly on top of each other so you can match the existing screw holes, and drill them with the drill bit that just barely fit into the existing hole so you can screw it back together.

If this worked for you, consider doing your other two non-broken panels as well since the Lexan panels will not crack.

Your other bet would be to ask those guys at Positive Gaming who used to be part of the ITG team. They used to sell the Afterburners and they still try to sell dance pads, so they may know where you can get Afterburner parts (like Kyle Ward).

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LOL. My down arrow is also cracked. Seems like this might be a systematic failure on their part (I never read about this before)

If you actually go through and replace parts, tell me how it works out for you if you try to put in thicker, stronger panels so that the arrows are less recessed like on DDR arcade pads. (I hate how the afterburner is too recessed)

edit: hellrazor, do you (or anyone else) know anything about this:
http://www.positivegaming.com/index.php?id=35

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i'm bothered by the fact that i cant find a price anywhere on that site :/ pad looks nice though.

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Only what I've seen in the videos.

Being such a small thin pad slippage will be a concern, and I believe it connects to your PC through bluetooth, so there's going to be lagging and batteries to install. The biggest thing you should be concerned about is that the company doesn't post any PRICES, so they are going to just charge the $#!T out of someone who buys one.

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Kevin was selling his PG pad on aij here for 300: http://aaronin.jp/boards/viewtopic.php?t=5678 or you can buy one here for a grand http://www.gophersport.com/products/item_detail.cfm?item_id=8170&cat_id=1089&RequestTimeout=60&Ne=1000&N=1127&No=32

i have one and it doesn't slip on carpet or hard floors. it has little rubber nubs on the bottom.

also note that the wireless pads are only for the multiplayer system otherwise its wired and uses a control box.

Holy crap, $1300 for a little plastic dance pad that doesn't have control buttons on the pad!?!?!?!? You have to step on the control box to start a song??? I see that being a CRACKED control box very quickly.

Care to post a video showing the responsiveness of the dance pad, being a thin plastic pad I would question the durability and responsiveness of the pad. I don't see how little rubber nubs will keep it from sliding (perhaps lessen the sliding but it will happen especially on medium or thick carpets, and on harder play modes). And for $2600 you can buy TWO dance pads and connect them together, but there's no way to include the 2" separation between pads to make them arcade accurate, and two thin plastic pads would teeter on a carpet (one pad would go up and down as you switched between them) which would make it annoying to play on, although I'm sure this happens even with one player on a carpet, since it's only a 20pound plastic pad.

And why can't they include the bluetooth option on the home pad as well, for $1300 you should get EVERYTHING so you can play wirelessly if you want or connect directly if you wish to remove lagging, but since there's no start / exit button on the pad you wouldn't be able to play easily. It's a fault of their product, they designed a game with three players and only one person in control, so they only permitted one person to have all the options (select difficulty for each player and all the mods for each player) and thus the pads have no functionality.

$900 for a set of 6 "practice pads" meaning they are just plastic shells or less??? And $1300 for a little plastic dance pad, that's INSANE!!!!

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from what I can tell, these are prices for the FULL iDance system
"Deluxe System includes wired platforms, practice platforms, game console and software, TV, media cart, and mobile storage unit for platforms!"

Also, you can grab yourself some replacement lexan as hellrazor has said, or message redoctane via the GH store.
As I understand, they are continuing support for their dance mats in the field, but aren't making any new ones. So they'd probably get you a new panel or two free if it's inside warranty, but if it isn't, getting your own done might be the only way to go.

Shouldn't be too hard, home depot will probably be willing to cut you the plexi aswell as recommend you the right type for your budget and requirements.

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RedOctane doesn't exist.

gl trying to get activision to repair your dance pad.

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Look at the link, those were the prices for the standard pad alone, the "Deluxe System" is $8000 because it included a $500 TV and a PS2, two of the plastic wired pads, and 6 practice pads, all for only $8,300, what a bargain.

Here's their prices for home-setups (not their iDance system with the wireless pads and 32 dance mats [wonder how much that would cost someone if anyone was dumb enough to buy it]). The Deluxe systems below include a 42" LCD TV and that's the only difference.


Basic System with PS2®, 2 Wired Platforms, and 6 Practice Platforms $3,695.00

Deluxe System w/ PS2® and 2 Wired Platforms and 6 Practice Platforms $8,295.00

Basic System w/ Wii™, 4 Wired Platforms, and 6 Practice Platforms $6,795.00

Deluxe Wii™ System w/ 4 Wired Platforms and 6 Practice Platforms $11,395.00

Components

Impact Arcade Wired Platform Ea $1,295.00

Impact Shadow™ Practice Platforms Set of 6 $895.00

16-Platform Storage Cart Ea $2,495.00

I just saw a short review of the iDance Wired Platform at DDRFreak, it said the arrows were solid meaning they didn't give in, and said it felt like playing on concrete, and that the pad was insensitive and wasn't even close to an arcade machine.

Also be advised that Bacon works for Positive Gaming, so his responses will be in the company's interest.

"Chris (Foy), together with another key associate of Positive Gaming, Kent Fund aka Bacon, will be covering dozens of events for Positive Gaming and iDANCE this year in the US and in Europe. " http://www.positivegaming.com/index.php?id=203

But back on topic, good luck getting a replacement panel at Home Depot. The Lexan and Plexiglass are found in the WINDOW department, if you can have someone cut it for you, do it. I've found that the smaller sheets cost less than the larger sheets if you calculate the cost per square foot, so keep that in mind, you can probably get two panels created from their smallest piece of Lexan if it's suitable for your Afterburner.

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PG Pads cost a lot less in Europe : http://www.yasd.fr/Tapis-souples.html

However I find them no better than the Cobalt Flux pad.
For twice the price you get a plastic pad that feels like a toy and nowhere near the arcade feeling.

Some people do like them though.

I just took a look at the Positive Gaming website as I was not aware of this "Groove Motion DDR" system they had.

Woah. Uh...

Brilliant idea... very iffy execution. The pads bow, greatly. And at every single stepping location, just watch the video. For something called Impact it doesn't seem to be able to take much of one. The software looks like a heavily modified ITG theme. Star ratings, dance graph, mines, I saw the Drunk and Twirl mods being used as well. Did Positive Gaming retain some rights from publishing ITG for the PC? The remote control also has a veeery familiar design to it.

I would love to have a system like that, it's just the kind of thing that would make DDR breakout in schools and gyms. But it would need to have hardware of decent quality, especially for something being used by that many people on a regular basis. An arcade stage for all its ruggedness needs constant maintenance and repair just from normal use.

And the song list, was that the same London Bridge as in Pump Pro?

damn hellrazor, i can see why you have a negative rating now.

some things that bump the costs up so much on the gopher site is that all of their products come with a lifetime warranty which is pretty crazy and that attributes to the high cost. also note that cobalt flux has similar prices for their pads http://www.gophersport.com/products/item_detail.cfm?item_id=7802&cat_id=1089&cat_id=1089&RequestTimeout=60&Ne=1000&N=1127&No=0

the thickness is the same as a cobalt and it does have buttons for start and select on the wired model http://media.rhythmatic.net/gallery/v/machinesdb/impact/PG-007987.jpg.html

anyway i'm not going to defend the PG pads here and yeah i worked with PG in the past. i was just suggesting it because someone was selling his and it was mentioned. if agentmargo wants to know more about what i have to say about them then i don't' mind explaining more.

also like someone else said RO made the Afterburners and have no affiliation with PG or the original Roxor team.

edit; AeronPeryton this isn't really the thread to start talking about PG .. if you want to start a new thread i'm bored enough to talk about it.

The PG pads may cost a bit, but they are completely worth the money. I've played on a lot of pads in my day and this one comes the closest to the arcade.

Yes, It's the same London Bridge

The arcade stage is not made out of hardened gelatin.

Is there a song list somewhere for the iDANCE games? Is it possible to buy the program by itself?

I've heard about the Positive Gaming pads(and I also heard they were better then the cobalt flux). I probably won't be buying new mats anytime soon. I will hopefully get some time to look for Lexan material. Does anyone know if Lowe's sells it? I don't live near a home depot.

Lowes is a Home Depot 2.0 for more refined material meaning you'd probably run into actual brand names and not generic ones.

Have a google for places in your area, if you don't have a lowes either.

Any moderate to large hardware shop worth their salt will have plexi.

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Just remember, you probably have plexi panels now and they crack, go with Lexan for your fix because they will never crack.

Read some of these comments to see how much better Lexan is than Plexi, the fact you have 1/2 your panels cracked in a short time is proof enough to go with Lexan (as a reference I've had my lexan panels for 8 years now and I play HARD 5 hours a week at over 200pounds because I'm 6'7", up to 13 footers, and all my 18 panels are still in good shape).
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1072509

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Would it be possible to put the lexan overtop of the panels. It probably would make my panels less recessed too. I don't know if I should mess with that foil circuit on the bottom of each panel. Should I post a picture of the panel currently?