FAQ about Arcade DDR

Rahzel · Trick Member Joined: 18 Dec 2004 Location: Urbana, IL

I just bought some replacement sensors for the DDR machine in the Rec Room in Urbana, IL. I ordered them from Betson Imperial and paid $30 for each. I was under the impression that I would be ordering Official gray sensors made by Konami (as, and correct me if I'm wrong, Betson is Konami's official USA distributor?). However, when the sensors arrived, they looked suspiciously like the green Channelbeat sensors.

I was unable to reach Betson for an explanation on this matter. Did they just make a mistake and sent me the green sensors instead of the gray ones, or have they run out of official gray sensors and are now using the same green sensors that Channelbeat is using? Has anyone else had a similar experience ordering sensors from Betson?

Thanks,
Rahzel

Tomo_kun · Trick Member Joined: 26 Oct 2003 Location: SE-WI.

I belive a couple pages back someone mentioned that they started sending out the green ones. I guess they ran out of the grey ones.
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Cutriss wrote:

FLCL, God of Gods wrote:

Uh... so when do we get the porn forum?

If you can't find porn on the Internet, you're not trying.

Rahzel · Trick Member Joined: 18 Dec 2004 Location: Urbana, IL

Okay, do any parts vendors have the gray ones left then? One of the green ones we got didn't even work out of the box (i'm pretty sure I installed it correctly) so I'd really like to get my hands on the gray ones.

Tomo_kun · Trick Member Joined: 26 Oct 2003 Location: SE-WI.

AFAIK, no. And those green ones should work, its just a standard hot/cold switch.
_________________

Cutriss wrote:

FLCL, God of Gods wrote:

Uh... so when do we get the porn forum?

If you can't find porn on the Internet, you're not trying.

RyogAkari · Trick Member Joined: 15 Jul 2004 Location: Louisville KY

You know,

I would be interested in finding out if the green sensors are official in some way. The switch from the gray ones to the green ones came suspiciously close to the time that Dancing Stage Fusion came out.

I mean, sure, why not? Perhaps these sensors are better in some way. From descriptions that I have recieved from people the only differences seem to be that they are green and are slightly shorter.

The shortness of the sensor can actually be a plus! Because of how the bracket is designed, it only hits a small portion of the sensor. A sensor can be "dead" in one place, and still work in another. If you are an arcade owner and are as concerned about the status of your machine as I am, I would suggest getting the new green sensors, then use the benefit of being able to adjust where the sensor is being hit in the machine every month or so.

I'm placing an order with Ho-Man (I'm getting 10 sensors, he's getting a new set of 32) to channelbeat pretty soon. I'll update on how good/bad the sensors seem to be.

Rahzel · Trick Member Joined: 18 Dec 2004 Location: Urbana, IL

I did notice two differences between the green and gray sensors, besides the color and shortness. One was that there was more "air" space between the electronic pressure register device and the rubber protective material. Two was that the outer rubber shell comes off of the pressure register device VERY easily, whereas the gray sensors are one unseparatable unit.

Please let us know how the green channelbeat sensors work out for you guys. We had one green sensor arrive DOA on us, and so I'm skeptical of these right out of the gate.

Yeehaw McKickass · Contributor Joined: 06 Oct 2002 Location: Chicago Area

If you guys are really skeptical about the Green sensors you can always order PIU sensors and just splice the wiring together.

PIU sensors tend to be a bit longer, but they're about the same quality as the old grey DDR sensors.
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kyaku · Trick Member Joined: 09 Sep 2004

Daddead324 · Trick Member Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Location: Illinois

I will look in to this
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kyaku · Trick Member Joined: 09 Sep 2004

Yeehaw McKickass · Contributor Joined: 06 Oct 2002 Location: Chicago Area

Standard CD-ROM drive (IDE) no less than 32x is what you need. Check your voltages too.
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RyogAkari · Trick Member Joined: 15 Jul 2004 Location: Louisville KY

kyaku · Trick Member Joined: 09 Sep 2004

Good news, bad news, random info and thoughts.

The good news is that I was able to pull our cd rom, take it apart and clean it (but it wasn't very dirty at all). Then, I was able to put it all back together and the machine booted just fine. (thanks to ryog, yeehaw and anyone I've forgotten for the tips!). Bad news is that we got one and a partial game out it before it froze on the "second stage" screen again.

Our extreme has a CR-583-J CD ROM with a date of 2/97 in it. 8X speed! ; no wonder it sometimes loads slower than other machines that I've seen. Guess we have one of the first ones made?!?

Anyway, I've spent most of the day today researching and here's some of what I've found:

"Matshita is short for Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd., sometimes known as Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronics Industries Ltd. which is long for Panasonic." "... CD-ROMs beginning with the letters "CR", which means that Panasonic manufactured your drive and plunked it in an OEM PC like Gateway or Dell"
Also they are in some HP and Apple computers and some are sold under the "Creative" label. Note the "some" part.

These are only my musings from the info I've seen:
I still can't figure out what drives the CD ROM or where it's stored but it looks like there were three original drivers for models CR-583,4,5,6,7,8,9 and CR-593 and 4 - windows, DOS or OS/2. ALL the CR models have now been discontinued. CR-594 seems to be a popular choice; I saw it mentioned several times on industry arcade repair sites (and I even saw it on one little board that linked to this board as a reference!). One site had the 594 listed as a replacement which was for sale at something like $100. Also, I saw it mentioned that the CD-ROMs go out frequently (guess it's time after all the years of hard use they've had). Anyway, I've decided that if I'm going to buy a another CD ROM, I might as well go for the newest one. Just hope it works.

Also, I checked the first ebay link given by Ryog above and noticed that it is a 52x36(or32?)x52 drive. That's the same thing that my friendly-arcade-machine-repair buddy told me to go out and buy off the shelf. I don't know enough about CD ROMs or have the spare cash to risk though. (and I didn't dare quiz 'buddy' too much; he was already giving me free info off the top of his head).
It would be really nice to find out which ones of these would work.

Hope someone finds this useful but I'd like to post my disclaimer "Everything you see on the net IS true".

RyogAkari · Trick Member Joined: 15 Jul 2004 Location: Louisville KY

The link that I gave you was actually to a new CD-Rom drive.

What happens is massive amounts of computers were made by certain companies, and when they failed to sell all of their products, they wholesaled the computers to parts distributors that sell the parts inside of the computer. The CD-Rom drive has never been used, only has sat inside a case for awhile. Anyway, I would still strongly recommend getting it. I personally use the CD-Rom drives that this guy sells.

Anyway, I recieved my shipment from Channelbeat yesterday and went on a big cleaning fest on my machine today and installed the new sensors. I only bought ten new one's where Ho-man bought a set of 32. Out of my sensors that I installed I didn't have any bad luck with dead ones, but unfortunately didnt have enough time to test them all. The sensors are fatter than the konami ones and are slightly shorter. The sensors worked amazingly for the few times that I got to play with them. They are amazingly responsive and are 100% consistent. They hold freezes really nicely too! I'll do a progress report a few weeks later after the sensors have had a chance to break themselves in. As for right now, they get my official seal of quality.
Oh, and the bar pads that they sell are kinda nice too.

Ho-Man · Contributor Joined: 04 Mar 2002 Location: Noblesville, IN

Loading slowness, errors, and freezes could be caused by a bad or dirty disc. These older CD-ROM drives are a lot less forgiving than modern ones in what they can reliably read. Try burning a copy of your disc on various types of media and see if you get any better results. Old CD-ROM drives had more truoble with burns and would often work better with some formulations or brands of media than others. Experiment to find out what works best for you.

As for the sensors, the new ones are probably fatter because they haven't spent the last several years being smashed under the weight of people playing. ;) I'm excited to get my set in the machine. I anticipate they will negate the need for the "business card mod."

kyaku · Trick Member Joined: 09 Sep 2004

kyj197 · Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2005 11:17 am Post subject:

After browsing the internet for 2 hours. I found the guy that sells the arcade sensors at the lowest price! Of course, it is from ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dance-DDR-Pump-It-Up-In-The-groove-Floor-Sesors-set-1_W0QQitemZ6212197263QQcategoryZ3945QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

RyogAkari · Trick Member Joined: 15 Jul 2004 Location: Louisville KY

Here is a low down report on the green sensor.

When I initially installed the green sensors in my machine the i/o check board reported that 2 of the sensors were inactive. Of course I thought that this meant that they were dead. I took them out and played with them a little and then they started responding on the i/o board. Since then I haven't had any problems with them.

The green sensor case is fat. It doesnt fit in the slot like the konami sensors do. But, once it's in there it is snug and responsive.

I watched dozens of people play with the new sensors to get a judgement of how they were doing. At our university club meeting the second day the sensors were installed we had around 10 AAA's, 2 dozen SDG AA's, and if you wanted to full combo a song, you pretty much had the option of doing it. I noticed however, in really really fast play, and beginner people there seemed to be an awful lot of misses. My conclusion after watching more was that the green sensor is simply not as sensitive as the original sensor. In other words, you have to press slightly harder for it to register. But, the really cool thing about the sensors is that they never fail to hold a freeze, even if you bob up and down on them. That is the major advantage to having them. The other thing I noticed is that the green sensors seemed to get more sensitive as people played more on them. Essentially, they need to be "broken in".

My overall grade? I'd give them a B+. They aren't nearly as sensitive so that can detract really light players and the people that are starting out, but for your regular players, they will only notice improvement.

If you want the best of both worlds here is my suggestion if you think you would like to purchase some of these as replacements in the near future. Take your best Konami sensors and line them on the inside sensor slots of each panel (example, the down sensor of the up arrow, the left sensor of the right arrow, the up sensor of the down arrow and the right sensor of the left arrow). Next, start replacing sensors with the channelbeat sensors starting with the outside sensors and work your way in. This will give each panel the best of both worlds from both types of sensors.

I don't want to give a bad impression by being critical of the green sensor. They simply are really good. I've recieved nothing but compliments since I made my final adjustments to my machine. They really are a blessing, and you will notice leaps and bounds in improvement in your own machine with them.

Ho-Man · Contributor Joined: 04 Mar 2002 Location: Noblesville, IN

Here's a theory for you on the sensitivity of the green sensors. If the fit in the holder sis very snug, it may be deforming the sensor slightly. In other words, the holder is squeezing the sides of it and causing it to bulge up. This would create slightly more distance that it would need to be depressed to be activated. The "break in" period you mentioned may be softening up the sensor jacket (the green rubbery stuff) and getting the sensor to settle into the holder. It's probably stiffer and less flexible when it's brand new.

I doubt many of us have ever played on brand new Konami (gray) sensors. For all we know, they may have the same issues.