I am in the middle of creating a component box for my empeg and was a little confused on wiring. I am going on the model of Brian Mihulka of including a power supply in the box but I am unclear as to which wires should be connected to what. Ground should go to earth and Power to main power but what should things like 'Ign Sense' and 'Amp Remote' be connected to? I am thinking they would all get connected to the primary or secondary power feed but I am not completely sure. Any guidance here would be helpful.

Greg

You should just connect Ign Sense to Main Power and disregard the Amp Remote. It is used to relay other devices like amplifiers so that they are only on when the unit has power.
Certainly do not apply power to the Amp Remote, smoke is about all you'll get.

Ign Sense tells the unit when the car is running or in Accessory mode. That way you don't kill your car battery if you leave the unit in while your not in the car.
My recommendation is to not leave it in the car unattended anyway.

OK, I am trying to think this one through but am having a little probelm. I have the Power and Ign Sense connected to the 12V+ feed from the power supply. Ground is to earth and the other wires are just hanging in free space. The Empeg starts to boot then hangs because it seems to not be able to find the drives. If I plug in the unit with the normal AC plug, it works fine. If I plug it into my car sled, it works fine. So I am thinking I need to connect one of the 3 remaining wires (Ing Sense, Lights on, and/or tel. Mute) to something but I am not sure what. This is what I get from terminal:

empeg-car bootstrap v1.00 20000601 (hugo@empeg.com)
On DC power, quick boot

e000 v1.03
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux................................... done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg43 (mac@aphex.internal.empeg.com) (gcc versi
on 2.95.2 19991024 (release)) #213 Sat Jun 23 16:35:13 BST 2001
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 7, serial number 90000784)
Command line: mem=12m temp=28 noinitrd
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 11008k/12M available (960k code, 20k reserved, 292k data, 8k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Linux-IrDA: IrCOMM protocol ( revision:Tue May 18 03:11:39 1999 )
ircomm_tty: virtual tty driver for IrCOMM ( revision:Wed May 26 00:49:11 1999 )
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is 67706d65 'empg'
Scheduling custom logo.
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004580).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
hdb: no response (status = 0x80)
Probing primary interface...
hdb: no response (status = 0x80)
hdb: no response (status = 0x80)
hdb: no response (status = 0x80)
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman (erik@vt.edu)

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:12:03:1
0
VFS: Cannot open root device 03:05

None of the other wires should be needed.

Sounds like your power supply isn't giving the unit enough juice for the drives for the car sled. Check all wiring and make sure the power supply is beefy enough.

___________
Tony Fabris

I looked at the power problem and switched the ign sense to a seperate 12V line but still had the same problem. Then I switched the power supply from 230V to 115V and that seems to be kicking the power up to a level where the system runs. So now everything is running.

Thanks for your help!

Greg

Uhhhh, are you running a 115v PSU (or a PSU switched to 115v input) from 230v? This is a bad thing, the voltage may be higher, but it might be *too* high and could possible cause problems with your empeg.

As long as you have a REGULATED >1A at 12v you should be ok. A lot of cheaper PSUs won't manage this sort of current, a switch-mode one is ideal.

Hugo

As he's in Boston (at least per profile), it's more likely that he's connected to 110V and had the power supply originally set to 230V. I'd imagine that could make it hard for the power supply to deliver what it was supposed to...

/Michael

Michael is absolutely correct. The power supply has a switch for voltage which was set at 230V and not 115V to process the power properly. Once that was set properly, the voltage down the line came in line. I also tested the output from the 12V labeled lines to make sure they weren'r sending too much power down the line and they are not.

The only odd thing is when it is working, the unit shows that it is running in battery mode (i.e. It has a battery in the upper right hand corner). I am assuming this would be normal as Ign Sense isn't connected to anything. The box is coming along nicely but I am taking a bit of a break from the project so I will give you a brief.

Original Idea: I have a Mac Classic II that I haven't used in years so I was going to convert it to a fishtank. Then I started thinking about the component box and wondered if the Classic would work. It already has a power supply built in and the cage should fit through the CRT opening comfortably hiding all components.

So Far: Well after removing everything except the power supply, I realized the cage would slip in perfectly. Unfortunately, this leaves no clearance for the player when it is inserted. Also, the cage would rest against the exposed power supply which I was just not comfortable with. So I removed the Mac power supply and replaced it with a small power supply from a PC. I have cut out some wood to hold the cage in place but need to shave the side of the mac to allow space for the player through the opening for the CRT. After that, I just need to connect the cables to the packs I have put in the back of the case, connect everything up, and it should go. Photos will follow in a couple of days.

Greg

The only odd thing is when it is working, the unit shows that it is running in battery mode (i.e. It has a battery in the upper right hand corner). I am assuming this would be normal as Ign Sense isn't connected to anything.

The battery icon indicates that the voltage is low. Also, you should connect both the continuous power wire and the ignition sense wire to the power supply. You could also put the ignition sense wire through a pushbutton power switch, that would be cool.

If the battery icon does not disappear after connecting the ignition sense wire, I would suspect your power supply of being inadequate.

___________
Tony Fabris

The only odd thing is when it is working, the unit shows that it is running in battery mode (i.e. It has a battery in the upper right hand corner). I am assuming this would be normal as Ign Sense isn't connected to anything

Hmmmm, the battery indicator actually says that the feed voltage is
lower than some limit (I think the exact level is mentioned in a FAQ, as
well as the level where the display blanks), so I'd guess that your
supply is a bit overtaxed (or underrated from the start...)
I don't think that the ign. sense is involved in that - but far from certain...
Does it go out if you connect +12v feed and the ign. sense?

Neat idea on the Classic!

/Michael

Tony gets the first word, as usual... shouldn't have stopped editing for that snack...

Edited by mtempsch on 27/09/01 06:52 PM.