Well, I've had the new Scooby for about a year now. It still hates me, and generally tries to inflict pain on a monthly basis (flat tyre, bumper scratch, dead battery, new rattles, failed strut, ...).

But I do love driving the ungrateful beast, except for the lack of a good selection of tunes. So it's time to install an empeg into it, while keeping the decent factory tuner head unit.

I was planning to use the PCATS Display Extender, but it does have the issue of having to find space for the daughter board that it provides at the display end of the cable, making things a bit too bulky to easily accommodate it all.

The radio / dashboard fascia was easy enough to pop off -- have done it before when adding a backup camera to the factory-provided "Multi Function Display (MFD)". Looking around inside the dash, there's a huge cavity in this particular trim model. It has automatic climate control, which means the knobs for temperature/fan etc.. are all just rotary encoders, fly-by-wire rather than actually fiddling directly with vents and louvres.

Other trim versions need the space behind the knobs to hold mechanical wizardry, but not this puppy. There's enough space back there to mount two empegs, deep behind the fascia.

Two problems with that location: (1) accessibility is difficult for servicing the empeg (adding tunes, fixing problems, etc), and (2) a remote display is required.

The first issue (deep burial) can mostly be mitigated by providing an ethernet/wifi connection, as many others have done before. But I really want access to the hard drive (SSD) itself. So I'm wiring in an IDE/SATA converter board, and then an 18" SATA extension cable from that, to permit having the SSD in a more accessible location under the glovebox.

The second issue (display) turns out to not be so bad: I made up a 14" long ribbon cable for the display, and can surface mount it separate from the empeg, in a reasonably good location just under the climate controls. So no need for the PCATS extender this time around.

I've prepared all of the cabling, and modified the empeg enclosure to gain external access to it. Hopefully the install (on Sunday) will go smoothly. There's still some work to make a mounting system for the display, but the rough prototype I have already will do for the moment.

Photos later.

Meanwhile, I have to figure out how to use the bigdisk builder. It's only been a decade or so..

Ahh. the bane of the empeg.. getting stuff into it!

My 44-pin PATA(IDE) to SATA drive adapter doesn't appear to be completely compatible with the empeg/Hijack kernel. I could debug and fix it, but I really just want to get the empeg into the car today, rather than spending all of my time at the computer.

So.. trying other solutions. I have an excruciatingly slow 32GB ADATA CF card that works, so it's currently getting the FID collection copied to it. That'll take another 3 hours or more (on a PC).

But joy! My mSATA to PATA adapter board actually works with the empeg! And the 128GB mSATA drive on hand is considerably quicker than any CF card. So I'm copying stuff to that now too.

This does mean whichever device is used will have to be on the end of the rather short IDE cable from the empeg though, so it will end up being buried in the dash with the empeg itself. At least I can dangle it outside the empeg case, so it can be removed/serviced without having to remove the entire player from the vehicle.

Longer term, I'll likely work on fixing whatever the issue is with the SATA converter, to enable use of a (much) longer cable.

I used the SSD to test things out while the CF card chugged along, and eventually used the (cheaper!) CF card for the actual install, buried deep within the dashboard.

The empeg sounds fantastic (as one would expect!), and doesn't look overly shabby despite the "velco installation" for the front panel. After 12 years of empeg bliss, I have really, REALLY missed having an empeg in the new vehicle for the past year.

There are installation photos.. but later!

Nice work!

Although I have to say that I made an audible noise when I saw the poor player buried so deep back there.

You've solved the hard disk problem, but what about Hijack updates? Is there a feature to update Hijack from an image on the hard disk?

Hijack upgrade should still be possible. I can't remember the specifics, but there was a pretty easy method exposed, pretty much "cat upgrade > /dev/somethingorother". Used to make use of this to auto update any empeg on the network, back when I lived with 2 other empeg owners.

Yeah, I did include an ethernet cable in the install, and Hijack updates (as well as player software .upgrade files) can all be applied over ethernet. My "upgrader" program for .upgrade files works on Linux, OSX, and Win32.

But I did not include a serial cable, something that I may regret. Anything that serious, and I'll pull out the CF card (requires removing one piece of trim) and debug it on another player.

If it turns out to be hardware fault with the empeg, then I also have to remove the factory radio to get the player out again. Deep burial!

Oh.. and now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure I forgot to update Hijack from v508 to the latest (v516) before the install.. perhaps I'll go and do that now, and maybe snap a pic of it with the smoke buttons/lens installed.

The remote display of course has the expected issue of looking a little funny without the pullout handle there.

These days, with 3-D printers, I wonder if we could be successful at 3-D printing new fascia designs, without the notch for the pullout handle, to accommodate remote display situations like that?

In this particular case, I suppose I could just glue the handle in place below the remote fascia. Except that would take another 1/4" of access away from the compartment below/behind it.

Instead, I might inset the fascia into the mounting board, which would make it look nicer without taking extra space.

I think I'll be redoing the display mount anyway, to add some ventilation holes and tidy things up. Later. It's working well enough for the time being.

Cheers

Looks great! Definitely the best install of 2014 I'd like to see the recessed fascia. Definitely post a picture if you do that.

It'd be really cool if you could come up with one of the rare AnoFace's from 303. I think it'd match the anodized brushed aluminum look of your dash really well.

Yeah, those are reeaalll purdy!

A couple of issues surfaced now that I've had time to tinker with the empeg in the new Subaru. The display didn't dim when the headlights were turned on, and the player turned off far too quickly (instantly) when the ignition was switched off. A clue to both problems was that the player didn't seem to be detecting that it was on car power automatically (thinking instead it was on AC power).

So tonight I pulled it all out and fiddled for a while. Turns out the sled harness that was used was one of the ones wired incorrectly from the factory, with the ACC/BAT lines reversed, and the headlight sense connected to the wrong pin.

So I fixed all of that, and also removed all of the unused connections from the harness, by pushing the pins out of the docking connector. This way, they can be re-inserted at some future date, as if that's likely to ever happen!

Doing all of that fixed the dimmer issue, but also resulted in the player not turning off at all when the key is removed from the ignition. Since it was still reporting the wrong power source, I just swapped it out for another player from the collection, and everything started working correctly. Yay! At some point I'll replace the borked AC-power jack in the original one.

I've updated/added some photos of the revamped wiring harness, and night photos of the empeg with its new red lens and smoke buttons.

Well, the red lens turns out to not be usable at all in bright daylight, so it's all back to smoke + smoke! That combo worked well enough for 12 years or so in the Forester, and it'll do fine again now in the Impreza!

Cheers

Hi Mark,

Which IDE to SATA adapter did you use? I would like to get one and try it.

Thanks,

Ross

Mark,

Sorry, I misread your information.

It looks like you had issues with the PATA to SATA converter too. The mSATA to PATA is the one that worked.

That's good.

Ross

Well, for what it might be worth, here's the mSATA adapter, beside the mSATA drive I use with it. This combination works beautifully, and is nice and compact. It also has the benefit that mSATA drives are only just coming into fashion and should be commonplace and useful for a few years yet.

When purchasing one, ensure it has the 3.3V regulator populated (black thing, near bottom), otherwise it may fry the mSATA drive.

Hi,

Will two of these fit in an Empeg? How did you mount it? They look like the 2.5" Laptop Form Factor.

They draw about the same current as the Rotational Magnetic Media drives. The 5V to 3.3V Regulator is probably an LDO. Examples...

The Crucial M500 480GB mSATA drive is 0.95A. The Adapter is probably another 100mA = 1.05A


The older Laptop example drives are:

IBM TravelStar 4200RPM PATA 10GB 0.5A
IBM TravelStar 4200RPM PATA 12GB 0.5A
Toshiba 4200RPM PATA 12GB 0.7A
IBM TravelStar 4200RPM PATA 20GB 1.0A
Toshiba 4200RPM PATA 40GB 0.7A
Hitach TravelStar 4200RPM PATA 120GB 1.0A
Western Digital BEVE 5400RPM PATA 250GB 0.55A
Western Digital BEKT 7200RPM SATA 250GB 0.58A
Seagate Momentus 7200RPM SATA 320GB 0.451A
Western Digital BEVT 5400RPM SATA 500GB 0.55A


As shown, power efficiency has evolved over the years. Huge differences is storage capacity, with even less power drawn, even at higher platter speeds.


But then, some of us remember the old 10 platter plus servo platter pack disk systems. Some of them had 14" diameter media in an overall package with a handle to help remove it - they were heavy. 80 MB was very large capacity. And who can forget the 8" 230KB Floppy Disks like Shugart?

Back then GUIs were simple (fill in the protected display fields), unlike today's GUIs that suck alot of storage, but give a much better feel of operation. I prefer today's operation.


Thanks.

The M500 series are among the highest power consuming drives -- their only bad point, really. Other modern drives (eg. Samsung) use less power.

The total assembly is about half the size of a normal notebook drive. You can just tape it up and cable tie it to the drive tray. No problem with two fitting in.

I probably pre-date you on the curling stone style drives. And my first hard drive at home was a whopping 5MB !!!

But really, if you figure the SSDs will spend their entire lives in the empeg, then perhaps just order a Kingspec IDE44 SSD (or two) off eBay. Simpler.

eBay search link: http://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2...0&_from=R40

Hi,

I think you have me beat on the curling stone style drives.

I have seen plated wire memory and bubble memory devices. At a Sperry Univac building in BlueBell, Pennsylvania, they had a microscope in the hallway that people could look into. It showed an active bubble running around the memory array moving from address-to-address. It was cool to see a few times. I also have an Intel bubble memory unit around somewhere, core arrays too, of course. 5MB? Really that much, huh?

We had a RAMAC cylinder memory drive for production at Sperry. It was used with a Univac 418 computer. If we had a power hit or bump, it would spin down or be interrupted - we expected at least 1/2 hour down-time until it was on-line again. Days gone by...


I just installed a Crucial M500 480GB in my main home system. My Seagate 750GB drive # of boot times was up and failed like a previous one. They are all out of my new system, of course.

I always perform monthly full drive image back-ups (EaseUS Disk Copy), and so my back-up was only 19 days old. Amazing how much crap you can put on a system used for general use and Engineering research in only 19 days - I had to go back and re-create some of it.

I decided to change systems and now I run my i7 back-up system. I left my i7 simulation system intact. I had to shrink the volume to a little over 379GB to fit the 480GB SSD. Took some time, but it's done and the 3 other 2TB drives - besides the 480GB SSD, only one needed the most work. I designated the remainder of the SSD as a Fast Local Storage drive partition.

I purchased the Crucial M500 used after reading your recent post and checking reviews. I paid $220 USD for it, it's almost brand new.

Are you thinking of playing with the IDE to SATA Adapter issue?



I looked at the Kingspec product, I would like larger storage space. I currently have dual WD 250GB drives in my Empegs. Thanks anyway.

Nice looking install, Happy motoring!!!


Ross

Hi,

Correction. It was a FastRand-III Disk Drive on the Univac 418 computer. It was a Horizontal Drive weighing 5000 lbs, the cabinet was huge, and sported 200MB of storage.


Ross

Yes, but when/whether it actually happens.. you know.



Ahh. Right. Well, those mSATA adapters might well be the best ticket. I know one can get 480GB mSATA drives for around CAD$250 right now (Mushkin).

Cheers

Okay, thanks.

Ross

Further to this, the recently available Crucial MX100 drives use a tiny fraction of the power of earlier models. Eg. the 500GB version (CAD$240) claims 0.1W idle, 0.15W active. That'll help reclaim battery life in many boxes.

Cheers

Now you tell me... <grin>

That's good info.

Ross