ALL Soft Pad Discussion goes HERE

[Goliath01364]

If you wana play in shoes its easy. Perform the plywood mod. When I did it I added extra thick plastic covering to my pad and put a folded wool blanket on the bottom beneath teh plywood (This will keep you from mashing the sensors into the ground when using your shoes) I then put double sides carpet tape on the bottom of the wool to keep ot from sliding. Just dont get armor all or anything like that on the plastic covering you wont be able to stay on the mat =)
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I don't play DDR......I destroy it....

[Jikmo]

ive had my Beat Pads for about 3 1/2 months now. when i first got them i was stupid and didnt mod them at all, so the one ripped at the seam in the back. i then taped it up and duct taped it to a plastic carpet cover (one to protect the carpet from chairs) which works well. i only had one cover though, so the other i just taped striaght to the ground. it's worked well, but within the past week i just noticed that the back arrow on the pad i tapes straight to the ground was unresponsive, and i found that the contact had moved

im having a ddr party on monday (which kinda sucks to have a ddr party and 1 pad not working)

does anyone know if there's a solution to fix contacts that have moved? like do i cut open the pad on the bottom and move the contact back into place or whatever? are there any diagrams of the circuitry anywhere that i can look at? id rather know what im doing before i cut off the top or bottom or both of my pad and try to move stuff around

im guessing that the contacts are on a sheet or something that probably folded over, so it'll probably be easy to fix once i open it, but id still rather know what im doing before i do it.

[Kazooie074]

I have a DPR2 that I got from gamespot for $20. I use it ontop of a piece of plywood (I cut it to be the same size then was going to tape it, but decided not to because I wasn't sure yet if it would work properly.) I'm glad I havent taped it on yet because my feet/ankles hurt waaaaaaayyy too much after only 1 or 2 songs. I feel like I'm really damaging them or something, so I have decided to just go on carpet for now.

I really want to put the pad ontop of something, if only to reduce "moving". I read in another thread about chair mats (those thick plastic sheets with spikes on the bottom that you put on your carpet to protect it from a rolling chair, or what-have-you), and I am now comprehending buying some of that and affixing my pad to that. But, I have a few questions.

Should I use this chair-mat stuff? Or should I stick with plywood but buy some sort of foam and put that between the pad and the wood? Or should I even go as far as getting the chair-mat and some foam as well?

Please help me, my feet hurt alot.
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CURSE YOU AQUASCUM!!!!!

[pathos]

Okay, I wish someone had told me this before I bought my pads, so here it is for all of you:

WARNING: THE REDOCTANE IGNITION 2.0 PAD WIRING IS EXTREMELY FRAGILE. Seriously, it's gotta be one of the worst pieces of engineering work I've ever seen. I tripped over the cord on my pad and it tore the cord out. I opened the pad up and it turns out that the *wires soldered to the PC board* were the ONLY thing holding the cord in!! no stabilized metal ring, nothing. RedOctane, what in the hell were you thinking??? Plus, everything internally is a hand-soldered mess. And the underside of the PC board has this weird wax all over it...

So I recommend against these pads. Or, if you must buy one, the very first thing you should do is secure the cord with tape. A lot of tape. A lot of very strong tape. And never pull on the cord, or trip on it. Be very careful. It's very fragile.

Angry pathos.

[pathos]

Continuing from my previous post, I have to fix my pad now and it's going to be tough to solder. But right now, it's going to be impossible because I don't know where the wires went.

Can anyone tell me where the wires go on the RedOctane Ignition 2.0 pads? There's red, orange, yellow, green, blue, brown, and black wires, and there are 7 solder spots on the front of the PC board plus a solder blob on a resistor on the front, too.

One of the 7 front contacts (the one nearest the resistor) looks like it never had a wire in it, so I'm guessing that 6 of the wires go in the remaining 6 contacts and the 7th goes onto the resistor.

Can anyone verify this, and tell me the order?

Thanks!!
pathos

[pathos]

In fact, the best thing in the world would be if someone were cool enough to take a quick digicam picture or two of their Ignition 2.0 PC board and send them to me... pretty please?

thanks!
pathos

[Jikmo]

Kazooie074: i'd stay with the plywood, that's the best. you're probably just steping too hard. don't stomp! as u just found out, it not only hurts the pads but also your feet! and if you're not stomping (don't see how not, i mean, it shouldn't hurt when u just walk on plywood) then the charmat should be good, as i said that's what i use (but i wish i had some plywood, my friend brought a ddr pad attached to plywood yesterday and it was really nice)

[pathos]

okay, i figured it out.

in case anyone's curious, here's the deal on the wiring for Ignition 2s, assuming the pc boards for them are all the same.

you have 7 contacts and a diode or something off to the side, at the front of the board.

kind of like this:

[ojste]

right ive been wanting to mod my pad, and ive been looking at Tommyguns mod..


"I bought two pieces of wood (about 34 by 39 inches), sanded them down, and stuck double-sided carpet tape on them. Stuck down the pads, put the clear covers over them, and used black duct-tape all around the edges to secure the whole thing."


what type of wood will be best? and what material is the clear covers?

thx for the help

[spyjuice10]

I happen to have a RedOctane Ignition 2.0 pad as well and my zipper piece kinda broke off...
The zipper track is completely fine, all i need is a new zipper..zipper thingy.

Has anyone else had this problem? If so, how did u fix it?
I'm gonna take my pad to a hardware store and see what they can do...i think the top quality zippers are like 25 cents or so...

[Darkling]

In a totally unrelated tangent.

I just played in an arcade today and realized something. When playing on soft pads, you learn to step low. So now I trip over the metal and brackets in the arcade. None of the softpad mods seem to address this. I mean Marking where the arrow is is fine, but dang, tripping in the middle of Healing Vision Angelic Mix is no fun when it makes you fail right at your 100 combo... *bitterness*
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-The many crazed utterings of Driver Stu

[Jikmo]

yeah, i dont think there's any way to train yourself to not hit the brackets unless u buy a metal pad (or maybe just put sheet metal or wood or something ontop of your pad) and it doesnt help that whenever i go to an arcade i get all nervous cuz of the crowd

and marking the arrow hurts! i marked it with 3 layers of ducttape once, and it gave me a huge blister, even with wearing 2 layers of socks

ok, i still need to know about the curcuitry on the inside of the pads. i just built a psx->printer port adapter (following the instructions that u can find anywhere) and it's really annoying to not be able to do doubles since i only have 1 working pad. the ddr party only went well because i got someone else to bring her pads. i just need to know what the circuitry looks like, where it is in the pad, and how i could fix it if it's torn or something (i can only use the top left part of my down arrow, the rest of it is unresponsive, i assume it's either torn or folded over)

[pathos]

hey, jikmo,

i don't know what kind of pad you mean by "beat pad" (i.e. what kind of price range / quality) but fundamentally the actual "sensor" logic in the pad is not that elaborate; generally speaking it's just two contact plates separated by something that is just squishy enough that when you step on it it pushes the contacts together -- pretty straightforward...

(actually, some of the cheaper pads i've used seem to have self-contained little circles for the sensors, but i assume they're probably the same thing, but it's easier to make the device robust the less surface area the plates have to have, so the cheap pads go for small sensors.)

first of all, it may be that the particular buttons' connections to the main circuitry at the head of the pad is busted. check out this page (which redoctane includes in customer service emails!) for an example of improving contact between the pc board and the ribbon cable on ignition 2s the high tech way: with a little piece of cardboard. i had to do this to my ignition 2s and it worked like a charm.

http://home.earthlink.net/~reversengineer/ignitionpadrepair/ignitionpadrepair.html.

if the problem doesn't seem to be at the head of the pad, then go for the rest... i can't imagine that the sensor plates would be mounted to the outer pad material. especially if the sensor is sliding around, then obviously it's not. so i'd just take an x-acto knife, slit the pad open around its border (i.e. all four edges) while it's lying face-down, carefully pull back the bottom of the pad (i'd stop immediately if anything looks like it's fastened to that pad bottom, flip the pad carefully, and try again with the top) and just look at what's there.

for the most part i expect that the circuitry is printed on plastic sheets, so you shouldn't have to worry about damaging that unless you scratch the plastic. then, find the sensors that aren't working, make sure they're not torn off the plastic circuitry sheet, and just kind of check out the sensor itself. if it's completely sealed then it might be tough to fix unless you're comfortable slicing it open around the edge and checking it out.

like i said, expect some kind of foam or rubber padding material sandwiched between two contact plates. then, when you squeeze them together, they should make contact and close the circuit. maybe they got dirty? try some Flux Off or something to clean them, perhaps. or they're torn or something's broken, in which case it's gonna be tougher, especially since you can't really solder in there without melting all the plastic and making a huge mess.

oh, and obviously all of this is super-risky as far as its potential to destroy your pad entirely. so don't do it unless you're comfortable doing it. and i don't actually know what pad you have, so i'm speculating a lot here. and if you bust up your pad it ain't my fault.

good luck!

[pathos]

take the period off the end of that url:

http://home.earthlink.net/~reversengineer/ignitionpadrepair/ignitionpadrepair.html

[Jikmo]

thanks

Beat Pads are by MadCatz btw

that's kinda what i was expecting, my other pad tore on the bottom so ive seen the inside of it, i just didnt understand how it worked until recently (like yesterday )

ill open it up and try to fix it later today and tell u how it goes

if i remember correctly from when i looked at the inside of my other pad, the contacts are strips of foil attached the top and bottom of the pad that look like this

---------|
|
|--------|
|
|--------

(with more rows and less spacing between them)

so probably on the one side it got stratched off so it looks like this

--- -----| (because the top left of the button still works)
|
|---------|
and so on

i might be able to fix it by just taping some foil to it, but i havent actually looked at what the problem is, so i dont actually know. and i think the foil will rip easily, so i dunno

eh, i might end up building my own pad some day, it'll really suck and probably break easily, but i might build my own

[pathos]

you can buy conductive epoxy and silicone adhesives and stuff. i bet a radio shack or home depot would carry some kind of conductive glue you could use to just "paint" the circuit back on with a thin coat of that instead of taping foil. i bet conductive glue would be much more robust and last indefinitely where foil would probably tear or scrunch up and be a big pain.

[Warg]

Why does everyone talk so much trash about the Mad Catz pads that are $15? I have two and I've played songs like Drop Out, Rythym and Police, and Afronova Primeval, and I've passed all with a B or better and no riping. It's not even modded (no tape). I have a Red Octane $50 pad and an Ignition 2.0 and neither works as well as the Mad Catz pad! I would have to say get a Mad Catz and the only mod is to get better.
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Warg

[Daegon]

Ok. I've had a pair of Cyphergames Ignition 2's for a few months, and they're finally ghost stepping and "dying." So, being as electronically knowledgeable as I am, i cut off the sides of the pad and dissasemble the pad peice by peice. To explain to those who are not as technically informed as some of us (yeah, you. I'm asking you the question, hold on)

Here's a diagram of the makeup of any soft pad

_________ layer 1- the strong part you step on.
_________ layer 2- the positive contacts for the arrows
_________ layer 3- open cell foam with holes for the contacts to contact eachother through
_________ layer 4- the ground contacts for the arrows
_________ layer 5- the thin plastic sheet to keep everything together

Ok.. that was pretty poor.
The issue is that the layer of open cell foam has worn out on my pads. I'm trying to figgure out what to replace it with, preferably something that wont wear out as readily as the foam that was in there before. I'm thinking that the closed cell "nonslip" foam on the underside of the majority of pads would work well, i could just cut holes in it and use that .. But if you already knew all that i have a question. Seeing as every pad's hole'd foam between the contact sheets will eventually wear out, what is the best material to replace that worn out layer with?
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Santa already owns various holidays, he's a very powerful gentleman. I'd be surprised if he -didn't- own Canada by now

[Warg]

Acctually, Mad Catz Beat Pads ($15-$20) are very high performers. Lawrence and I had them set up and completed Healing Vision Angelic MIx with an A, Rythym and Police with an A, and MAtsuri Japan with an A, not to mention numerous 8 footers and below with great scores. We even managed to beat Max 300 on 1.5X with a D on the $15 pads, which in my opinion is a great feat in itself. Pictures tommorow!
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Warg

[Kazooie074]

Ok guys, help me here:

I need to mod my pad. Now.

I have plywood cut to the size of my pad (naki DPR2), with an inch on each side or so. All I do is play on-top of that (haven't taped yet), and it's not doing much.

The reason I havent taped yet is because I was holding out to acquire a nice piece of foam or whatever (maybe 1-2 inches thick) to place between the wood and the pad, then I was going to tape all that down.

The questions start here. Should I hold out for some foam (I could just go get some tomorrow), or just forget about it and go wood + pad?

Will I be able to play in shoes this way, either with or without foam?

Do I need hardwood covering to play in shoes?

Do I need even more to be able to play in shoes?

Please please help me, I'll love you forever
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CURSE YOU AQUASCUM!!!!!