Best home-built hard pad given my criteria?

[rlpowell]

So in talking with my gf (we want a pair of pads to play on) we decided that we weren't willing to buy hard pads, simply because they are going to break sooner or later, and we need to be able to fix them ourselves. We really don't want to make a purchase of that size twice.

So, I'm hoping y'all can help us pick a good homebrew kit, given these criteria (in order of importance):

1. Easy to repair.

2. Can support fairly heavy people (I weigh about 250 pounds/115 kg).

3. Not too horrendously difficult to build; I've built http://www.geocities.com/ddrhomepad/ in the past without too much trouble.

4. Reasonably durable components; "easy to repair" does not mean I want to have to do so every time I play.

I've noticed http://members.aol.com/tenk/ddr/intro.htm as a possibility, but I'd love to hear if there's anything better.

Oh, and did DancingTofu ever get off the ground selling his pads?

Thanks.

-Robin

[Lawrencesss]

Devout Stealth Homepad.

Satisfies all of your requirements!

I can attest to its durability, I played on it at 300 pounds.

[rlpowell]

[rlpowell]

[Lawrencesss]

The foil is epoxied to wood, and totally sealed, so there is no possibility of any scratching, if you spread the epoxy around then it will be years and years until you get any damage from the negligible horizontal movement of the panel. The nature of the penny contact means there is never any movement there, so no real risk of damage.

If something does go wrong, just unbolt the panel, lift it up and see what is wrong.

The only issues I have ever had with my 3 Stealth pads, is I had a wire break in a D9 connector I used for the wire to the control box. I also dropped an axe head on one of the panels which put a dent in the sheet metal, was a 5 minute repair since I had made spare sheet metal cap

If you are so mistrusting in foil, then replace it it with some sheet metal with the corners snipped off.

One additional thing I would recommend, is drilling a hole through the wooden panel in the corner to allow for the release of air pressure.

[ChilliumBromide]

From a design standpoint, I can attest to the Stealth's perfection. Devout is well versed in electronics and engineering compared to the average person on this forum. It's cheap, durable, and simple. If you do the foil right, it will not tear, and if it did, you wouldn't be able to scrape it off. epoxy is intense stuff.
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I used to be active here lol

[rlpowell]

[slvrshdw]

basically, make sure the arrow well has a break in it.

[_] <- like that, if it makes sense.

just drill/dremel out some room for air to move. it will help it work better
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[devout]

Who there called mah name?!

I don't know if my pad is best for you or not, and I try not to ever "recommend" it to anyone (I'm sure you can come to your own conclusions about it without me telling you how to feel). For me it was the third pad I made, and by far the least frustrating and least expensive.

Anyway, even if you don't build it, you might want to take some ideas from it, since I do think it has the potential to be pretty durable. If you can figure out what you like and don't like you can probably modify it pretty easily to meet your needs. A lot of people seem to not like the tin foil (aka pretty much everybody) so I'm still hoping some day someone will replace it with sheet metal and post some pics/instructions here and we'll have a new design to talk about.

Good luck with your homepadding, wherever it takes you
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the world's most refined homepad: devout stealth

Almost-finished non-Stealth homepad for sale, just add sensors! see here: http://www.ddrfreak.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=8921579#8921579

[rlpowell]

I made a thread for my even-simpler (but much uglier) design:

http://www.ddrfreak.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=8862015

-Robin

[rlpowell]