This page summarizes how Binky and I created a Dance Dance Revolution controller that rivals the excellent Konami Deluxe pads, nearly from scratch, and certainly for far less money. The problem with the Deluxe pads is that they are extremely hard to find, which makes them typically very expensive when you DO find one. This leaves most people with the very thin and fairly crappy pads, which suffer from a host of problems.

The basic theory of the pad's operation is very simple. Like any controller, input to the console is indicated by closing a switch between a common lead (the same 'wire' goes to all buttons) and a specific lead which indicates which button was pressed. This part of the controller has been the same all the way back to the Atari 2600. After the switch is closed, on modern controllers, a small circuit converts the input into a format that the game machine can understand.

On a DDR dance pad, the buttons are the areas that you step on with your feet. All pads that I've seen, from the cheapies to the Deluxe pads, work by separating the common lead from the specific buttons with a material that compresses when you apply pressure (usually foam). Holes in the material allow the button to press against the common plane, which closes the 'switch' and completes the circuit.

On the cheap pads, both the buttons and the ground plane are simply printed onto a thin sheet of plastic. On the Deluxe pad, the buttons are still printed onto a sheet of plastic, but the ground plane is much more solid. However, in both cases, the flexing of the plastic sheet eventually causes it to tear. (The steel pads use a much more robust means of creating a switch, but they use similar principles).

As mentioned, this construction of the pads causes a fair number of problems. Common ones are:

They crumple up during use

They slide all over the floor

The contact sheets inside tear with use, rendering the pad unreliable, or even unusable.

Konami's Deluxe pad solves the first problem admirably by adding an extra padded layer underneath the main pad. They also address the third problem with only a single plastic contact sheet, and creating a solid ground plane for it to connect to. However, although this makes the pad last longer, it will still eventually tear inside.

This tearing problem led myself and another friend, Keiko to develop a permanent fix for the Deluxe pad, using aluminum screens for contacts. It works like a charm, and the success of that strategy has led into this project.

The second problem, sliding, is solved by most people by taping the pad down. However, if you plan to use the pad on carpet, a more permanent (and overall more stable) solution is to attach the spiked plastic material, often used for mats underneath desks, to the bottom of the pad, using double-sided tape, or duct tape around the edges. This provides an extremely stable surface that holds up to the fastest songs.

Armed with this background, and the strong belief that enough Duct Tape can build anything, we set to work to create the ultimate pad.