Repos / hi.imnhan.com / 2df02562a2
commit 2df02562a2e47470e4ee15ddacb87047cd17c7e2
Author: Bùi Thành Nhân <hi@imnhan.com>
Date: Mon Feb 8 14:36:30 2021 +0700
add pad mod post
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+Title: Simplest possible stepmania soft-to-hard pad mod
+Date: 2021-02-08 12:47
+Category: side projects
+thumb: images/padmod/08_finished.jpg
+
+
+I've been playing Stepmania on and off for years now, but only recently tried
+taping the soft dancepad to the floor. It blew my mind how much better it
+felt, since I no longer had to worry about the pad sliding or curling up:
+
+
+
+However, taping & untaping every time I play is too much of a hurdle (and
+I want _zero_ friction for my cardio sessions). Therefore, the hard pad mod.
+
+Of course people on the internet have done this a gazillion times, such as
+[this one](https://www.angelfire.com/pro2/softpadmod/) or [this
+one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Soem9tnzeG0). Those guys did way more
+fiddly stuff that I personally don't need though, such as putting thick
+vinyl under each button for better feedback, or covering the whole top with
+more vinyl. My plan is simple: cut out a piece of plywood, double-sided-tape
+the bottom with a yoga mat for slip protection, then tape the softpad on top.
+
+Luckily, my uncle had a spare piece of plywood that somehow had the perfect
+width:
+
+
+
+So my job is sawing _one single line_. How hard could it be?
+
+
+
+Turns out, the saw was blunt, and my sawing technique was so bad (read:
+non-existent) so the cut keeps leaning to the right. Since I had no idea how to
+fix it, I just continued until the halfway point then flipped the whole thing
+over, hoping that at least my right-leaning sawing was consistent.
+
+
+
+What do you know, it worked!
+
+Since I also had an old unused yoga mat, I checked how well it worked as a
+non-slip solution:
+
+
+
+Then cut it into shape and slapped on some double tape. The board itself was
+heavy enough so just putting it on top of the mat was enough to make it stay in
+place, so the tape's only job was to keep the mat from falling off whenever I
+need to pick up & move the whole thing around.
+
+
+
+Finally, taping the soft pad on the other side. I used this roll that I bought
+from the nearby [Emart](https://www.emart.com.vn/), which was hand-tearable, so
+I could work without scissors, and also easily removable, just in case I need
+to replace the soft pad in the future:
+
+
+
+And with that, we've got the end product. It ain't pretty, but it works. Very
+well at that. A nice bonus that I didn't expect is that thanks to the mat
+underneath, the board just feels softer, therefore more comfortable, to step
+on.
+
+
+
+I know serious DDR enthusiasts will [scoff
+at](https://youtu.be/sEWj2_BNG_0?t=263) the idea of using a soft pad at all,
+but really I'm just a fat dude trying to lose weight and have fun in the
+process, not trying to impress anyone in the Stamina Nation Discord or
+whatever. With that use case, I think this specific setup offers the best
+bang-for-your-buck, considering how even the lowest tiers of premade hard pads
+sell for exorbitant prices (and that's before shipping, if they even ship to
+Vietnam at all), and DIY-ing a hard pad from scratch is way more effort.
+
+Between this and working through [the comet
+book](https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/), I think I'll keep myself
+entertained enough during Saigon's potential second COVID-19 lockdown.
+I'd prefer it didn't happen though.