My homemade pad & modded soft pad.

8ftmetalhead · Last edited by 8ftmetalhead on Sat Mar 14, 2009 1:42 am, edited 1 time in total

Alright, Since this thread has been answered, and my old homebrew topic is a bit out of date, I'll update this one with pics and news of both of my pads

Over christmas, I built my own hard pad out of wood. 2 sheets of 18mm MDF, 12mm MDF for the step panels, with 1.0cm foam underneath, and the sensors I used are 1mm galvanised steel nail panels, about 70 cents a pop. My brackets are simply cut from "make-a-brackets" using tin snips, and they work well enough to stop the panels coming out. Since taking this pic, I've changed how the wires sit, instead of tying them around the screws, they now are placed underneath the nail panels which are then screwed or glued on top. I've had a few wire snap problems, but they've always been easily repairable, just a quick lift of the panel, snip, and away I go again.

For the cover, I used 1mm plastic sheet, and I printed my design out onto plain A3 paper from an original 82cmx82cm image, manipulated and cut up with Gimp and paint.

Yesterday I made an enclosure from 1.0cm thick plywood with .5mm plastic film screwed over the top of it.
It worked well with my usb mat on stepmania, despite it being a bit slippy on my hardwood floor.
With my ps2 mat, it was a bit oversensitive on the X button at first, causing a few concerning confirmations and miss steps, but with a bit of adjusting, it's working a fair bit better (enough to get A's and B's on most songs, and a C on max 300, which is what I get using the hardpad.

Cheers to everyone who's helped me out so far in getting these going and furthering my obsession with fun and good health

My arrow graphics are modified from kaikanor's fabulous design, found here:
http://www.ddrfreak.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=131312&sid=edc41f3f774a04eb14e30596d2989da8
And my dragon image was found on google, desaturated and colorised.

As soon as possible, I'll get a video uploaded, most likely within the next two weeks, as I'm hosting a tournament at my school.

(Old Post)

Hey all, today I put together (with help) a piece of plywood (9 mm?)with some 0.5mm plastic sheet on it to stick my soft mat (s) in, with the plastic screwed to the board rather than stapled.

It works great with stepmania and my usb pad, but unfortunately not quite as well with my ps2 pad.
It's being tetchy and registering presses of the X button when i press the left or up button sometimes, or even just stand on the middle of it. I'm wondering if there's anything you guys can think of to change the flex of the plastic to ease off the x button a bit, because aside from the irritating menu selections, it presses the down arrow aswell as the left or up during songs sometimes.
And on DS fusion there doesn't seem to be a way to turn off registration of the button functions.

If it was just me, I wouldn't mind all that much. But given that i'm hosting a DDR tournament in the next couple weeks at my school, I need the scores to be reasonably accurate.

In terms of fixes, i'm thinking perhaps washers or spacers underneath the plastic, and longer screws?

Cheers in advance all

slvrshdw · Trick Member Joined: 05 Jan 2005

What about adding a very small (1/4") border of either wood or cardboard or something around the edge of the pad to lift up so it doesn't hit the buttons as much?
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DAVE101 · Trick Member Joined: 05 Nov 2007 Location: Indiana

It sounds to me like the plastic is too tight and you push down arrows you are forcing the X down as well. You should post pics.
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poop

8ftmetalhead · Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 12:31 am Post subject:

It doesn't seem to be as bad now, I moved the pad around a bit, and i put the screws in at a bit of an angle by the left arrow.

It still does seem a bit off, but I think it might just be my pad, rather than the plastic.

Since the original post though, i managed to beat my previous highscore that i obtained using my hard pad on No 13 (on DS SN) and also passed max 300 to get a C with a dying leg. Which also beat my previously obtained C using my wooden pad. Which was obtained after my data became corrupted and i lost my record of getting a B.

So i'm happy enough with it now, but if the problem does crop up a bit again, I'll try chucking a bit of a border under the left side screws to lift it slightly.
Cheers for the idea on that note

I regret not doing this mod earlier though, because my mat no longer slides like a bugger on my rug, previously i had had to roll up the rug and stick the mat on the nonslip foam underneath it.

As requested, however, I shall post pics of it, alongside my hardpad.