That thread is about issues pertaining to the software on the machine, not the pad hardware. Laura's domain is primarily the hardware (well, the pads anyway), while Tony handles the software side of it, if I'm reading everything correctly. The first post in this thread contains a link to Laura's giant post about maintaining the machine itself.

Whoever ripped out the modding, I HOPE YOU GET YOUR FUCKING ASS BEAT NIGGA

Thunderbird's post is 100% accurate.

I've been hearing a lot of positive feedback about the pads since I fixed them up, so that's good to hear. I'll also be going back later this week once we get additional new sensors to prep them, so if anyone has any minor hardware tweaks they want done this week, please let me know!

And most importantly, if you play on the pads and they're suddenly terrible, please let me know, because it probably means that the machine has been vandalized again.

Thanks!

I went to ACME today from about noon to 2pm (e-Amuse maintenance time) and played eight games on the ITG machine, all on the Player One side.  Experienced no problems at all... with the understanding that I play songs in the 7-9 range, and weigh around 175-180 pounds clothed.  Didn't even have to clean up any baby powder before playing.

On the other hand, nobody else tried to play the machine while I was there, so I suppose that's bad.  But there were several families playing other things... once ACME finally refilled their change machines.  (I bring a roll of quarters because I can't trust ACME to keep the change machines stocked.)

I enjoyed playing some of the anime songs that weren't familiar several months ago, but that I've heard since then.  K-On season 1 ED theme (there were at least three versions on the machine, but no OP) plus Fuwa Fuwa Time, Sword Art Online season 1 OP, and was amused to see Kantai Collection's OP there as well.  I'll admit I looked for some Love Live songs, but with no success. 

Laura, you rock!

I hadn't checked the forums before we came tonight, so I was worried the pads were still bad. BUT THEY WERE AWESOME INSTEAD.

They're at *least* as good as they were before last month's modding/unmodding, even for doubles/couples, which is tricky to mod for if you're not used to paying doubles.

So yeah, thanks for putting up with the bullshit and doing a great job anyway. And a big eff-you to whoever ripped up the pads.

Pads have been raised slightly now that the sensors aren't too sensitive to do this. They felt great to me, but please let me know!

Hey, I played some ITG today and just wanted to let you know that the up arrow on P1 was missing about 5% of the time.  P2 pad was great though

Also my pack requests still are not on

Yeah, I was there on Wednesday night as well, and was having trouble with the 1P up arrow as well.  

Also found that the right coin slot was mostly dropping coins through to the coin return without accepting them, and the left side tended to simply eat them... unless you pushed against the coin door while inserting the coins, in which case the left side accepted them pretty reliably.

This isn't the right way to report problems, but I'm lazy and apathetic.

Please PM Laura (check for her in previous pages of this thread). That's the best way to make sure things get fixed on the machine.

Received a PM a couple of days ago and hadn't had time to respond. I'll try my best to check the up arrow in the next couple of days, as I'm going out of town for two weeks on Wednesday, but my schedule is pretty tight. I'll see what I can do.

Tony completely redid the modding again today because the foam and tape were all messed up and one of us finally had time to get down there.

He and dieKatze88 reported getting good scores on the pads, but we'd love for people who play more difficult stuff to go out and test it and report back!

Is there anything that can be done regarding the cabinet's super-wobbly P2 bar or the USB profiles at this point?

Not sure if anyone else feels similarly, but I can't really use the P2 bar and it makes so much noise while playing on the P1 side that it's distracting.

Bar welding has always been taken care of by Bill's shop (the number posted on the machines.) If you call and leave them a message, I'm sure they'll be able to do something about it!

RE: USB profiles - that's gotten extra complicated at the moment because of some changes going on in the codebase of Stepmania 5 that are gearing it up to be the industry standard. Stepmania 5 itself has no USB support yet, but the old builds are looking increasingly like they're going to be deprecated. We're trying to figure out the best solution for this.

The machine can't just stay on the current build of OpenITG for perpetuity? (asking because I don't know)

People keep asking me why I keep OpenITG running on my cabinet when I could upgrade to SM5. My old man answer = "If it ain't broke, then I'm not going to try and break it."

Regarding the bars: Is it actually the weld that is breaking!? I'm shocked if that's the case. I know this machine gets a lot of play, but if the pads are actually welded to the base, then I am amazed there's enough force being applied to actually cause the weld to break.

From what I remember reading YEARS back, the old style ITG dedicab (Acme's and mine) weren't welded, but bolted onto a plate on the stage. The newer dedicabs were welded (or so I heard).

Switching to OpenITG sure sounds preferable, as opposed to holding our breath for a SM5 update that might never come.

Any update on the status of this machine? I was thinking of checking it out sometime this week.

Played ITG briefly here last night on both sides.
The pads were great while playing 9s and 10s at least. Same issue as in the past though... The player2 safety bar is terribly wobbly, so it continuously makes a loud distracting squeak noise whenever you play no-bar or use the bar only on the player1 side.
If you play using the wobbly bar on the player2 side, the noise pretty much goes away and seems tolerable.

Also, the current theme is Chromatic and the song list is still amazingly huge, but usbs profiles still don't work for either side, despite this being a dedicab.

Played here last night, about ten games.  No pad problems, and every coin inserted was properly credited (months ago I had occasional problems with that). 

Took a look at the P2 bar and I'm not sure what they'd have to do to fix it.  Some of the sheet metal on the dance pad just behind the bar has worn or broken away, so there is a roughly crescent shaped irregular gap behind both of the poles of the P2 bar.  Not sure what they could patch that with that would hold up to people's body weight during play, but it probably would have to be filled in some fashion to keep the bar from wobbling noisily.

The bar rape is real. It leaves scars on the machine.

AFAICT the welds are broken for the pegs the bars screw onto. it's fixable if someone would remove the bracket and get it to a shop, this happened to my PIU.

http://hackmycab.com/downloads/manuals/In%20The%20Groove%202%20Dedicab%20Service%20Manual.pdf <- page 22, #5.

Played here for the first time today. Not a big fan of the theme but the pads are awesome. Didn't really notice too much noise coming from the p2 bar being loose, the p1 bar was slightly loose but not too noticeable.

Was there last night.  Played about nine games.  P2 bar status unchanged (doesn't affect me). Machine didn't eat any of my quarters.  Had three or four times when the P1 left arrow seemed to momentarily flake out on me, but it wasn't something I could create intentionally, and didn't happen frequently enough to be much of a concern.

Noticed there were a number of new folders since the last time I was there, so apparently someone is still updating the machine occasionally.  Wasn't sure that was the case.

The rating on user-created tracks always seems to be kind of a crapshoot, but there's little that can be done about that.  Some folders use the newer rating system like DDR Ace, which became clear when I saw an 11 rated song that had under 400 steps and felt trivial to someone who can't normally pass 10 rated songs (ITG rating system).  When I see a folder with everything at 10+, I'm never quite sure if it's really hard songs for advanced players, or reasonable songs that are using the DDR Ace scoring system.

Then on the other side of things, I played a 7 last night that nearly failed me.  I think that one was rated by someone who is used to playing ITG 12s and 13s and thought, "This is really easy, probably a 7 or so."

Also learned that if you play a song on Novice difficulty, it seems to force you into 1x (or possibly 0.75 or 0.5?) with the picture of the dance pad and the timing hints.  I was trying to play a song that had ratings along the lines of 9/11/13/15/17, and playing a four minute song on Novice didn't work out.  Something I'll need to remember for next time.

Yep, it forces that speed mod and background dance animations, just like you said. AFAIK, there is no way to avoid this when playing a Novice level chart.

Simply Love Version 4 for SM5(also also maybe one of the SM3.95 SL versions) has a option to remove all that stuff for novice play. I honestly never thought I'd say this but i'm loving SM5 and think this location would do well to switch over. It makes offset much easier to dial in and has a lot more options players would enjoy. Also I think Bill should look into Kyle Wards new insert kits. I think for someone like Tony that does a lot of work to the machine he would really love pads that he could modify with a laptop and not have to open up the panels any more. The panels are already counter sunk and has a simple 1 time insert to get the panels to a nice level everyone can enjoy. Sensitivity could easily be dialed in and the design is supposed to be industrial so little to no pad issues that include fixes like reboot the cab and let the pads re-calibrate.