Difficulty getting computer to recognise dance pads

Hi there,

I used to DDR as a teenager, and wanted to get back into it with my partner. I just bought myself two dance mats, namely the TX-1501, and the Multi-platform 1:1 Arcade Metal Dance Pad - Blade Series.

Alas, I seem to be able to actually use them! My computer runs Windows 7. As far as I can grasp, these are meant to be plug and play, but my computer simply cannot speak to the dance pads. It barely even recognises that they exist. It simply tells me that the USB Device cannot be recognised, and tags it as an unknown device. Roughly one in every five times I plug it in, it will try and locate approrpiate device driver software before failing (one single time out of dozens of attempts, it tagged the driver name as 'DDR' for a minute before saying it couldn't find it and changing it back to unknown device').

The adaptors are tagged as 'PS/2/XB/USB/WII/GC 5 in 1 Control Boxes. I've tried downloading several appropriate sounding drivers from the Mayflash website, but have had no luck getting them to work, or help the machine to identify the pads. I'm actually beginning to run a little bit out of hope/technical expertise at this stage, so anything any of you can do to help would be very much appreciated! I'd rather not have wasted all this money on two pads! ;w;

Contact the manufacturer.

You may also consider getting PS2 - PS3 adapters those seem to work well on Win 7.

http://www.amazon.com/PS2-PS3-Dance-Converter-PlayStation-3/dp/B000WE5HRK

Firstly, many thanks for the answer

I've dropped in an email to Mayflash, but am still waiting on a reply.

With regards to the adaptor idea, I assume the idea is that you plug the ps2 connector in and the adaptor converts the drivers to windows 7 somehow? I've just bought one, hopefully that will do the trick. I'll update when I know. Cheers!

I went out and bought a PS3 to PC adaptor, but I still seem to be having no luck. The computer says it installs device driver software from the adaptor, but that's about it. I've tried:-

-Trying to hit the buttons in the key logging section of Stepmania. It does not register that any button has been pushed.
-Holding start, select & up at the same time for five seconds, and then trying to key log through Stepmania. No effect.
-Downloading EMS USB2 driver and installing. Nothing.
-Going to control panel--Devices and Printers---Twin USB Joystick--right click---game controller settings---settings---calibrate---no response, or even an indication that any input is being received.

As the TWIN USB Joystick option remains in the devices section even when the dancepad is unplugged (but only so long as the adaptor is in), I'm starting to wonder if any input is being received. At the moment, I'm trying to download a virtual Windows XP, as I know that this dance pad was meant to be plug and play with it, but beyond that, I have no idea what to do. The answer I got from the manufacturer was 'Plug it into an XP computer'.

I'm genuinely lost here, and don't want to have wasted a hundred quid on dance pads I can't use. Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

I had a lot of diificulty to have my computer recognize the dance pad, but I found the solution:

After starting Stepmania:

1. Options
2. Config key/Joy mappings
3. Go with cursosrs where you want (to the ------- of the pad arrow that you want to config)
3. Hit letter m on claviature
4. hit enter
5. The ------------ will blink!!!!
6. Now you can hit the required arrow on your dance pad!

Now you can go on this way.

I hope, this will help someone!
I figured it out by myself, I was about to dump the mat, when finally found this.

In fact, Stepmania tells in one submenu to hit m and enter, but I can't remember anymore, where...

Good luck :)