I just thought I would bring up an idea I had that I don't think has been mentioned before. When I get my 30 gig Rio installed, I plan to stash a Linksys WAP11 somewhere in the dash out of site. My plan is to use one of the auxillary controls on my Viper brand alarm to switch a relay that will supply 12 volts to the ignition sense wire of the Rio as well as to the Linksys through a 5 volt regulator circuit (the Linksys runs on 5 volts). This way I don't have to concern myself with setting the shutdown delay to some really long number when I want to upload songs to the Rio in my car. When I'm done uploading I'll simply hit the button on the keychain remote again and both the Rio and the Linkys will power down.

My only concern is that the alarm system cannot be configured for toggling between on and off (maintaining signal to a relay until told to do otherwise).

Other than that it should work. If my concerns are true, Velleman at www.velleman.be makes a receiver and transmitter kit that would do exactly what I want, but would require 2 keychain remotes (the alarm one and their transmitter one).

Something else to be concerned with is that the voltage spike of the empeg powering up (or down) has been known to set off some car alarms which are sensitive to that sort of thing. But otherwise, I like that idea.

My car's keyless-entry system activates the dome light, and I could conceive of a system where one could wire a relay to the dome light for the purpose of remotely activating the wireless unit and the empeg all at once.

But before you go to all that trouble, consider that it's still best to take the player indoors with you for a variety of reasons.

I checked the manual on my Viper 500 ESP alarm and it has a latching output mode that "will send a signal continuously when [the auxillary button] is pressed and will continue until [the auxillary button] is pressed again." This is exactly what is needed (along with a relay) to remotely turn on and off the Linksys WAP11 and Rio. I can take care of the voltage spike issue with a short delay time on the shutdown. I'm not concerned about leaving the player in the car. The only time it's even practical to remove the player from the car is when I'm at home and then it's in a locked, cool garage. Perfect for linking to my Linksys WAP11 in the attic and my cat 5 network and uploading MP3s. I'll post an update whenever I get this all setup.

Why go to all this trouble of the car alarm when you can just have a relay plug in to your amp turn-on lead from the empeg ... the relay will receive a signal from the turn on lead to pass full voltage from elsewhere into your WAP11 ... now whenever your empeg is on, so is the wireless ... once the empeg turns off, so does your wireless. Now all you need to do is extend the delay of your empeg poweroff.

Greg

The reason for all the trouble is because I don't want to have the equipment draining the battery until I'm ready to do the uploading. No matter how long the delay on the empeg, it may not be enough if I don't get to it right away. I'm not sure what the maximum delay is on the unit, but having it and the access point on for many hours can't be good for the battery voltage. Plus I'd rather not have the access point running all the time while I'm driving.

Besides, its not really anymore trouble than hooking up a relay to the empeg's remote turn-om lead. I already have the alarm. I just connect the relay to the alarm's channel three output rather than the turn-on lead as you suggested. This way I have full control over what's running in the car and don't have to worry about running down the battery.

I can see your reasoning in this now. For me, though I have to park my car out of range of the remote control, however it's just within range for 802.11b.

I'm curious how draining the wireless access point is. If I could find a low powered one, that I could leave on at all times, that'd be preferable. If it could stay running for two or three days and then shutdown for inactivity after that, it would work for me.

I'm just not sure how many amps per hour they're drawing these days. I wonder if an ethernet converter would draw less power than a full-fledged access point?

Greg

I don't know how much power the ethernet converter draws, but the Linksys draws 550ma at 5 volts to transmit and 230ma to receive. I assume that when it's not in use that it draws considerably less power. I've got one set up in the attic. Maybe when I can get up there (the car's in the way right now) I'll measure its idle state current draw from the powersupply.

The Oronoco ethernet/serial converter would be nice because it would allow you to even update the software of the player without removing it from your vehicle. The only problem is that it costs quite a bit more than the Linksys. The converter cost about $200+$90 for a 802.11b card vs. $150 for the Linksys.

Stu

The empeg skips the flash prompt needed when it's powered on via serial. A workaround would be to have a Hijack kernel installed, allowing updates of that via ethernet.

Since we can split apart upgrade files now, and upload via FTP, anyone want to make a method of doing a complete player upgrade via FTP?

I was checking out some of the Linksys and D-Link boxes in the store the other day and they said that when in AP <-> AP bridging mode, it wouldn't act as an AP to client NICs. The way I read it, if you've got an AP in your attic and an AP in your car, if they're talking to eachother, your laptop (or whatever else you have with an 802.11b NIC) won't be on the network.

Is there another choice for what to put in the car that acts as an 802.11b client, not an AP? I'd rather have the AP in my house (than in the car). But all I've seen so far that can do UTP <-> 802.11b is an AP. Anyone have a pointer to something better that would be suitable for use in the car?

Ideally, I'd like to put a small (4 or 5 port) switch in the car, mount a couple RJ45s, plug the empeg into the switch, and plug some 802.11b transciever in as well to uplink the whole car subnet to the house when I'm in range.

Is there another choice for what to put in the car that acts as an 802.11b client, not an AP?

I think there are "adapters" with an ethernet plug at one end and a PCMCIA slot at the other, into which you stick a wireless card.

The problem is that they are expensive. Between the cost of the adapter and the cost of the PCMCIA wireless card, you end up paying more than you would have for an AP.

At least I think that's the situation. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

As Tony said, Ethernet-Wireless adapters do exist and are expensive.

A cheaper approach is to get one of the APs that can be setup to act as a normal wireless client, this is different to the AP-AP bridging mode. Not all APs can do this.

Two APs that can do this are the Linksys WAP11 and the Netgear ME102 (which both use the same hardware internally). Neither have this ability with the firmware that ships with them, but an upgrade to the latest firmware enables the client functionality. The Linksys (in the UK at least) is 50% more expensive than the Netgear, but Linksys seem to keep more up-to-date with their firmware. However, as the hardware is the same you can actually get the cheaper Netgear and flash it with the Linksys firmware.

As far as I can see these APs give exactly the same features as a Ethernet-Wireless adapter, but for a half to a third of the price. The only disadvantage I can see is that the APs are a bit bigger than the adapter.

The Netgear does not have an external antenna socket, don't know about the Linksys.

Linksys and Netgear APs are very similarly priced in the US, although the Netgear is much smaller. Has anyone actually successfully installed the Linksys branded firmware into the Netgear? Sometimes devices with the same hardware identify themselves as different devices and refuse to accept a different brand's firmware. Because of the size, I would like to use the Netgear in the car, if I can use Linksys' firmware to set it up as a wireless client.

Thanks, guys! That's the type of info I was looking for. Now I just need to decide if I really wanna spend that much money rather then bringing my empeg inside.

Has anyone actually successfully installed the Linksys branded firmware into the Netgear?

I haven't done it yet myself, as I don't need to yet. However there were reports over on http://www.practicallynetworked.com/ of people successfully doing it. Anyway, the latest Netgear firmware also claims to support client mode, so the Linksys firmware might not be needed.

A couple of quotes from the http://www.practicallynetworked.com/ forum:

"Wishing I bought the Linksys at this point. Saw an earlier review here that said they successfully flashed their ME102 with Linksys' WAP11 firmware.


IT WORKED! PERFECTLY!

Now I have a WAP11 in sheeps clothing. Wish Linksys got the benefit from the sale. Oh well, my first purchase of Netgear equipment - my last purchase of netgear equipment. I will not support a company that will not support their products. Simple as that."

"One little bonus I found is that you can update this unit to 128 bit WEP and have it act as a wireless bridge by using the Linksys WAP11 firmware.

Seems that both products use the same chipset, so it flashes with the Linksys firmware with no problems. Also the Linksys utilitys are much more robust then the one that come from Netgear."