The Afterburner Metal Pad is a creation by RedOctane. Its use is for "dancing" platforms like Dance Dance Revolution or In The Groove. I had bought a pair of pads. After ten months one had started to fail, big time. First, the button I used as my start button started to give me the epic finger of failure. Then shortly after the up arrow would intermittenly work. Below, I've chronicled some of the construction methods that have been used and what I consider to be terrible manufacturing. Of course, this doesn't necessarily discourage me from buying a replacement pad from them, I just feel they could do better when they're charging me that much money.
There are many places that I could start with. I decided to start with the first picture that I took. The underside of one of the panels.
Take notice of the scotch tape. Pretty ridiculous isn't it? I'm paying $250 dollars for this... and it's apparently held there by scotch tape? Well, it's actually not. The piece of copper is glued down with a very strong adhesive, what I assume to be epoxy. They could not use the tape and save themselves a few cents.
The wrinkle causes a little bit of concern. After revealing more pads, I see this:
The copper there is paper thin, so the source of the wrinkles could be the fact that it's paper thin, or too much epoxy being used. My guess is that it's paper thin. Increasing the thickness by a factor of 5 to 10 would probably get rid of the wrinkle factor. The only reason the wrinkles might concern me is that I've noticed it wears parts of the plate that it touches. The wrinkles touch the plate first, which means more pressure is applied to those specific areas for a longer period of time. It would have been better to make it where there is equal wear and tear along all sections of the plate. Apparently some people are modding theirs with sheet metal. That works well too. The point is, the thickness needs to be increased.
The next part I'm going to cover are said plates.
The plate method isn't a bad idea really. Each wire goes to one specific trace. Putting pressure on the pad will lower it, and the copper underneath the pad should touch the plate, shorting each of the wires together. It acts more like a switch, a normally open switch, like a push button switch.
The first idea I'd like to mention, is that I believe that there may be slightly better contact and significantly less wear and tear if the plates were tinned first. An extra conductive layer between the plate itself and the copper underneath the panel could be very beneficial for increasing the longevity of the plate.
Here's the next kicker:
I know the picture is blurry, but it illustrates my next point. Both sides of the plate in that specific spot should have lands, and the hole should be a via hole. Ok, those terms a little technical. Lands refers to the area that you can solder to. A via hole is barrel like. It can be a point in which you take measurements from, or a point that you can insert a component or wire into. Both of these used in conjunction creates a better physical connection. This plate cleary doesn't have that. You see things like this with class 1 electronics devices (cheap toys). These dance pads should be labeled as class 2 at the very least due to the vibration factor.
Barring that, if they're not going to change that design, simply adding some RTV (silicone sealant) will secure it in place. That stuff works wonders. Just put a nice blob where the wire enters the board, make sure the wire is touching the silicone... and you're done.
One last thing, the wires should be twisted and tinned before they're even inserted into the board. Not only does it work better, the wire holds up a little longer. (Or they could use solid wire instead.)
Speaking of vibration... Well, let's the next picture speak for itself...
Yeah... IPC anyone? I'm not super concerned about the wires not being at a 90 degree angle, however in this case it might allow the wires to last longer... What concerns me is that the wires are held down with electrical tape. Electrical tape doesn't stick to wood very well. A staple gun would have worked well here... as long as they took enough care to use a few more staples than they did with the pieces of electrical tape. Having the wires more securely held down will also help to decrease the chance of the wires breaking off at some point, much like what is shown in the fourth picture. If they're not going to use staples... RTV!
There's really not many things wrong with this design. It's cheap, but it mostly works. It just needs a few improvements to make it a top contender with the other things out there on the market. What turns into less than a year of light use before failure can turn into two years of moderate use with it finally starting to show signs of wear. My recommended improvements shouldn't increase the overall cost of the pad very much. Perhaps another 10$ at the most.