Im having truble interfacing my sony rm-x4s to my empeg, or at least i thing so(so dumb).. i dont have a tunermodule so ive searched the bbs and ive googeld around but with the info ive foud i havent got it working.. what to do? any clues? perhaps someone out there have a schematic for me to use... ive tried the clue found on www.armory.com/~charlie/empeg1/ but no luck seems to be somthing wrong with the hex file... or is the "project" just for mark1 players. my player is a mark2a..

There is an entry in the FAQ here giving the details on all of the wired and wireless remote options.

In that FAQ entry is a link to this site where there are details of interfacing a sony stalk to the player without a tuner module. The relevant text from the FAQ is: "John Lambon has done some project work in this area. Note: this is not a mass-market item, it's a do-it-yourself project for electronics hackers which requires technical skill, knowledge of your vehicle's control signals, and access to a microcontroller programmer. Details can be found here. John has also done some work in the area of connecting a Sony stalk controller, however that work has been superseded by the next option, below."

By the way, I realize John's interface is similar to the one you already worked with, I just offered it as an alternative if you can't get the first one working.

Silly question: You do have a PIC programmer and know how to do the necessary stuff to code it up, right?

yes, i do have a pic programmer, w.software and the knowledge to program the pic. ive done several similar projects before and i got those working.

Okay, cool. So can you elaborate in more detail what the problem is that you're having with it?

but no luck seems to be somthing wrong with the hex file

Perhaps it's something as simple as...

You're grabbing the pre-compiled OBJ files from the site using Netscape, and the web server's MIME types are set wrong, so the OBJ files are coming down ASCII-corrupted. If that's the case, use getright to grab fresh copies of the OBJ files and see if those work.

hopefully that is the clue to the problem, since when i was about to loadthe .OBJ file into the pic i got a error whitch i cant recall rigth now, but after a phone call to a company who designs pic programming hardware/software, he told me to delete the lines 43,44 and 45, in the .OBJ file because they were wrong and shouldnt be there at all because the call upon adresses that dont exist in a PIC12c508 chip. i followed his words and the programming went ok, but when i connect it to my empeg i get no response at all. by the way, i dont have the empeg docked because my car got fed up with me so nw its getting a service. does the empeg need to be docked? do i need any extra software on the empeg except hijack? any changes to config.ini? i know nothing about this?

Okay, first things first. Get the OBJ file re-downloaded with a proper download manager to make sure you're not blowing damaged code into the chip.

Then... find out what serial port speed this custom interface is supposed to be working at. If it's running at 4800bps, that might be your problem. When the player isn't docked, the speed is 115200bps not 4800.

Also, the wiring of the serial port itself is different between the home home connector and the car docking connector. On the home connector, it's "straight" so you need a crossover cable, on the car docking connector, it's already "crossed over" with TX/RX swapped, so you need a straight cable.
Click here for more info.

Don't forget, early Mk2 models [below serial number 1000 or so], were missing the Earth wire on the harness serial port, which would mean no data would flow.

You can check this by testing when the empeg is docked that pin 5 on the serial lead is connected to the metal chassis of the car - use a multimeter with either ohms measurement or "continuity tester".

If its missing then you can either:

1. add the missing earth to your serial lead (somehow)
or
2. Add a earth wire from your Pic chips Ground connection to the Empegs metal cage or grounded surface on your car.