Is there anyway to determine from the developers kernel if the EMPEG is actually seeing +12V, or not? I can pull my laptop out in the car without much problem to interface with the sled's Serial port for a prompt.

I believe /proc/empeg_power is what you want - it should say either "Lights sense high" or "Lights sense low".

BTW, the player switches the serial console to 9600 baud (IIRC) when in the car. That one had me stumped for a while since the last message you see on the console (if set to 115200 on the PC side) is "Switching to" and then nothing.

Borislav