Post your questions, opinions and reviews of the MPC1000. This forum is for discussion of the OFFICIAL Akai OS (2.1). If you wish to discuss the JJ OS, please use the dedicated JJ OS forum
By ideal214 Wed Sep 28, 2011 8:17 pm
great work .. will need to try this asap my pads 1-3 are fading away gotta smash em to get any result .and I wonder what other systems I can find this carbon enfused rubber on? What about a old pc keyboard hmm maybe? will start taking things apart and see what i can find gracias caballeros..
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By distortedtekno Thu Oct 06, 2011 6:40 pm
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.
Keep that in mind while trying to fix defective pads.
I'm not deterring anyone from trying to fix the old defective pads. But I gotta tell it like it is from my own personal experiences in the past with the MPC1000.... it ain't worth it. Buy the official pad upgrade and you won't have to stand in front of the mirror plucking grey hairs out of your head. :)
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By 99% Fri Oct 07, 2011 12:54 am
Power PAd FIX STILL WORKS. absolutley no problems. Screw the upgrade. This carbon rubber was designed to be stomped on so its durability might even outlast pad upgrades
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By 99% Tue Nov 29, 2011 5:14 pm
my pad fix still works and shows no signs of any future trouble. man i luv havin my mpc back without having to pay a suckers fee.

just made this bangin beat
http://soundcloud.com/geto_it/enter-i-god

thank you me and everyone else that feels its silly to not try to fix something yourself. knowledge is power, practice makes perfect. i'll post if i ever have any problems but on that note, i doubt youll hear from me again.
By JVC Tue Nov 29, 2011 5:37 pm
Again, good post! your post made me want to get a used MPC-1000 with broken pad for cheap, then apply your dead pad fix with the Nintendo sheet!
By miscend Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:52 am
99% wrote:Power PAd FIX STILL WORKS. absolutley no problems. Screw the upgrade. This carbon rubber was designed to be stomped on so its durability might even outlast pad upgrades


Does your upgrade make the pads more sensitive? Would you care to post instructions with pictures.
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By Sense-A Fri Mar 16, 2012 10:38 pm
I gave 99%'s powerpad fix a try. I realize the pad upgrade is the best option, but all of us don't have $180 discretionary income to spend on frivolous things.

So on my quest to fix 2 really bad pads and 3 others that were annoying, and $15 later i have a nintendo powerpad to rip to shreds on the hunt for conductive rubber. 99% was right there is plenty of it in here.

So taking the mpc 1000 apart is easy. I've done it at least a dozen times.

Next i moved the pads i was fixing to the top row so they'd be the least used. I carefully removed the old conductive worn out factory rubber using a fresh razor blade and carefully cutting each of the 4 corners without scratching the sensor. Then i used a cotton cue tip dabbed in rubbing alcohol and wiped the square sensor real clean so that it'd have a good clean connection when i hit the rubber pad and the conductive rubber hits the sensor.

I used the rubber i pulled out of one nintendo power pad and used the old one to cut a new template out of a healthy shiny section of it. I then used Dow Corning 700 industrial grade silicone sealant to carefully paste the new conductive rubber to the underside of the mpc rectangle rubber pad i'd be tapping on. In the center so it'd align with the square sensor. (super glue does not work so don't waste your time).

Image

This stuff works perfect and, fortunately, I had some in the garage left over from a construction job and this didn't require much of it. Don't waste your money getting an entire caulking tube of the stuff. any other silicone sealant brand might do. any hardware or paint store should have some.

So i plug the pad back in left the cover off just plugged the wires back in let the sealant dry about 15 minutes.

Power it up and hit mode pad 10 and went to pad looked at sensitivity and velocity curb and hit the pad a few times and it works. after some adjustments I've concluded that this fix works great and the silicone i used holds up STRONG and the conductive rubber is practically identical to the old original factory rubber. The pad triggers when i hit it without fail. I noticed a few double triggers before i turned down pad sensitivity. I moved velocity curve to C or D. Here is the downside, at least for me; I've lost the sensitivity of the velocity range. hitting the pad soft or hard triggers it at full velocity as if you had "full level" on. Well, hell. I can live with this since oftentimes i'd have full level on anyways. Saved me $165 and when money is plentiful I'll probably just get the pad upgrade but this gets me back in the game.

I have plenty of nintendo power pad conductive rubber left over so if you want some PM me. I can fit a pad in a normal envelope. Since I don't have a digital camera the contingency will be if i send you this crap for free your job is to post some pics if you want to try this because you too are too stubborn like me to pay $180 for a ridiculous pad upgrade kit that shouldn't cost more than $75. Now i need to at least try to save up for JJOS but he had to jack up the price on us so i'll pitter along on Akai os. It works for now.

One other thing. I tried another method of gluing new rubber in the same place the old rubber was. By gluing the corners. But i found that this was too conductive and the pad was triggering for long durations of time and i wasn't going to risk shorting it out so i turned it off and removed it and fell back on the steps i described above.
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By peeping tom Tue Mar 20, 2012 4:21 am
jkh0208 wrote:Why is this topic still sticky if the original post has been removed? I wanted to see the original fix, and the top topic on the forums was labeled as such,



yeh im with you man.
By smoothcriminal Thu May 10, 2012 8:25 pm
99% wrote:The NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF PAD FAILURE is due to the cheap carbon infused paper that lays over the sensor located under the rubber exterior pad. After time the carbon literally gets smashed out of the paper hence the dead pad


Here's an exciting thought, and I hope someone with more technical knowledge can shed some light on whether or not its viable: There's a product called CaiKote 44 "conductive carbon coating" which "Repairs membrane buttons, keyboard buttons and other carbon-based surfaces." Maybe it could be simply applied to the dead carbon paper on the MPC pads to restore functionality - or even replace the paper entirely as a coating for the pad contact surface? It is only $10 a tube. Also, Thinkgeek sells "Wire Glue" which is a carbon-based, electrically conductive glue, and even cheaper.

If the 1k pad failure issue is caused by a loss of conductivity, simply applying a fresh conductive coating at a marginal cost seems almost too good to be true.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/tools/ ... pg=froogle
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/2 ... =220224889
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By Tapuno Fri May 11, 2012 3:22 am
smoothcriminal wrote:
If the 1k pad failure issue is caused by a loss of conductivity, simply applying a fresh conductive coating at a marginal cost seems almost too good to be true.

Not so much loss of conductivity as the loss of the papser itseld. The nintendo pad fix seems to b holding strong.
By smoothcriminal Fri May 11, 2012 6:41 pm
I just fixed 8 sketchy pads using foil tape. Its weird, the "paper" (actually looks and feels like a thin piece of rubber to me) was 100% intact on my failingest pads. However those pads had a small amount of black powder inside them that clearly had rubbed off the "paper" whereas the working pads had none.

The whole process was time consuming but easy. With foil tape you don't have to worry about messing around with glue, and i'll be able to remove it easily if I want to try a different fix. I'm guessing its more durable than kitchen-type aluminum foil, it is used for repairing ducts and can be found in hardware stores. I used 2 layers of foil tape and the response is fairly close to the unaltered pads, #15 sensitivity feels the same on the repaired ones as #20 on the standard ones. It's possible with additional layers of foil tape, this could be fine-tuned exactly. The downside is that if the pads are hit too 'slow' or held down, it double-triggers, but when played fast/firm its fine. After the repair I had an extended jam session for the first time in months and it feels goodman to have 16 reliable pads.

I tried attaching the foil first on the rubber pad itself, and then over the black sensor covering. I ended up covering the sensor/cover with the foil tape on all my sketchy pads - it has a better feel and velocity response that way. It also seems like it might protect the black sensor cover from losing any more conductive material.

I'll probably try out the conductive glue fix later on a friends 1K (or if any of my non-foil'd pads die) and see if that is any better regarding double-triggering.

I'd also be interested in trying the powerpad fix if one of the gents here who's tried it would care to sell me some of the extra material from their project (PM me and we can talk paypal). I don't like the idea of losing velocity sensitivity, but maybe its possible to maintain it for example cutting the powerpad's rubber thinner or something. Also if anyone would like to try the fix using foil tape, the roll I bought is probably enough tape for everyone posting in this thread to repair all their pads - so if you'd like to be mailed some, PM me.
By Adamant Sat Jan 05, 2013 3:13 am
I would like to thank everybody who put in on this..last year i got mpc1000 for 250 dead pads 5 of them..i use alot of idea on here.my wife got me black pads she didnt know u have to upgrade up it.so i just cut the black pads remove the grey one..upgrade 25.00 bucks...ill post pic soon!!!!