First:
In the hardware description on the empeg site is the following statement:

The operating temperature range of the head unit is from 5 degrees
C to 55 degrees C, and the non-operating range extends down to
-20 degrees C. If it gets colder than this the unit can simply be
removed from the car and taken inside. This is the recommended
procedure anyway, both for theft-prevention and environmental
control. A temperature sensor inside the unit ensures that the hard
disks will not operate outside the allowed range, although we
expect to allow the user to override this safeguard in a future
software release.

I can state with some authority that the empeg's hard drives will take right off at temperatures as low as -12 degrees C (that's +10 degrees F for the metric-averse). I haven't experimented with temperatures lower than that.

Is this temperature sensor thing not implemented? Has the user been allowed "...to override this safeguard"? Is it just not working right? Will I damage my hard drives by operating them in these temperatures?

Second:
Under no circumstances will Emplode see my empeg through USB unless, after everything is connected and booted, I pull the USB cable from the back of the empeg and reinsert it, then click on the "refresh" button in emplode. Not a big deal, but if it happened to a novice user it might cause some confusion.

tanstaafl.



"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Under no circumstances will Emplode see my empeg through USB unless, after everything is connected and booted, I pull the USB cable from the back of the empeg and reinsert it, then click on the "refresh" button in emplode.

Are you sure the cable pull is a necessary component of this procedure? I often have to hit "refresh", but never has any cable-fiddling been required for me.

Note that 1.1 will do an automatic refresh at intervals in the discovery dialog (or at least I remember them saying it would).

___________
Tony Fabris

Under no circumstances will Emplode see my empeg through USB unless, after everything is connected and booted, I pull the USB cable from the back of the empeg and reinsert it, then click on the "refresh" button in emplode. Not a big deal, but if it happened to a novice user it might cause some confusion.

I see a similar behaviour with emplode on Linux, using the recently posted new USB drivers. I'm trying to track it down.

Borislav

Are you sure the cable pull is a necessary component of this procedure?

A little research shows the following: There are three steps in the boot/connect process. Start emplode, boot the empeg, connect the USB cable. What happens depends on the sequence of these steps.

1) Boot empeg
2) Connect USB
3) Start Emplode
Emplode will not see the empeg until I R&R the USB cable.

1) Boot empeg
2) Start Emplode
3) Connect USB
Emplode will not see the empeg until I R&R the USB cable.

1) Connect USB
2) Boot empeg
3) Start Emplode
Emplode comes up already connected, no refresh necessary.

1) Connect USB
2) Start Emplode
3) Boot empeg
Emplode will connect after hitting the refresh button.

1) Start Emplode
2) Connect USB
3) Boot empeg
Emplode will connect after hitting the refresh button.

1) Start Emplode
2) Boot the empeg
3) Connect USB
Emplode will not see the empeg until I R&R the USB cable.

So, it would seem that if I boot the empeg before I connect the USB cable, then Emplode will not see the empeg unless I R&R the cable after Emplode tries and fails to connect.

I suppose after all this someone will tell me "Well, of course you dummy! You always have to make the USB connection before you boot the empeg. I can't believe you didn't know that." But I really didn't know that...

Do other people experience these same results with the different startup permutations?


tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

FWIW:

I received a bug report regarding the USB Drivers, indicating that emptool fails to connect to the empeg on the initial attempt after loading the driver as a module. Thereafter, it seems to do just fine (at least on my hardware). The work-around, for the moment, is to load the driver, attempt a connection, quit the attempt using ^c or just let it time out, and then attempt the connection again. The solution to the problem exists, but implementing the fix breaks a lot of other stuff.

You've definitely got an unusual situation there. You shouldn't have to reboot the Empeg or reconnect the cable. The order that you do those things should be unimportant.

You wouldn't happen to be pluggnig the Empeg in via a self-powered USB hub, would you?

If so, see if the problem goes away when you connect directly to the PC instead of through the hub.

___________
Tony Fabris

I received a bug report regarding the USB Drivers, indicating that emptool fails to connect to the empeg on the initial attempt after loading the driver as a module. Thereafter, it seems to do just fine (at least on my hardware). The work-around, for the moment, is to load the driver, attempt a connection, quit the attempt using ^c or just let it time out, and then attempt the connection again. The solution to the problem exists, but implementing the fix breaks a lot of other stuff.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm seeing, except the workaround doesn't always work. Is the problem in the driver or in emplode? I was suspecting emplode since even when it fails to connect it *is* getting data from the driver but it doesn't like it for some reason (haven't had time to check why).

I'd like to get this working reliably since I'm trying to do other stuff with the player over USB.

Wishes,
Borislav

Do other people experience these same results with the different startup permutations?

I have similar problems, but usually, if I connect USB after opening Emplode I get a connection. Weird thing is, if I start emplode with the cable in, the drives whir when I hit "Refresh," but no empeg...




Brian H. Johnson
MK2 36GB Blue
"Born to Lose..."

You wouldn't happen to be pluggnig the Empeg in via a self-powered USB hub, would you?


Nope. I'm pluggnig one end of the USB cable into the empeg, the other end into the computer.

[smartass_mode] Is "pluggnig" anything like "plugging"? Maybe that's what I'm doing wrong, y'think? [/smartass_mode]

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

I ran my MarkI in the cold last winter in Anchorage without any problems. It hasn't gotten very cold here yet this winter so I don't know about the MarkII. Remember, its under warranty until at least next fall so don't worry about it.

Tom

Reg #2845: Mark 1 #00173, Mark 2 #119

Regarding the cold operating temperatures.
I have been leaving my empeg in my car overnight, and lately it has gotten down to as cold as -18C. Other than the unit being physically cold, it starts up nice and quick, I haven't noticed anything unusual in its cold temp ops. Are the drives not vacuum sealed? even then I suppose condensation can form, but I suspect the drive manufactures have figured this out from the dawn of the hard disk age, probably for military applications. But IMHO the only thing to "damage" a cold drive would be condensation, but I will put my left one on the line by saying that the manufacturers should have figured out a way to bypass condensation, unless its really frikin cold (like -80C or lower).

How does NASA deal with this? I am sure they have come up with a lubricant that is still viscous at close to 0 Kelvin, otherwise I am pretty sure the shuttle/space-station/satellites don't work via compact flash or an abacus or something.

So if NASA came up with specs, the drive manufactures built it, brought the cost down considerably, I am sure a similar product is being used for consumer applications.

IMHO not yours

I don't think Doug was concerned that the drives couldn't operate when cold/hot (although I think we all should be concerned about this), I think Doug's question was more along the lines of:

"There's a statement on the web site claiming that the Empeg has a temperature sensor. I haven't ever seen this feature kick in. Does the feature really exist or not? If it exists, is there a bug in it?"

So, Empeg guys: What's up with that?

___________
Tony Fabris

Greetings!

And, if it does work, how can you tell that it does? Does it fail to boot? Does it give a special indicator on the VFD?

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (40GB Green)

And, if it does work, how can you tell that it does?

Supposedly, it should allow you to operate the radio but not play MP3 files if the hard disks are outside of their allowable temperature range. At least that's what the web site said.

___________
Tony Fabris

I believe that feature may be kind of "commented out" at the moment.. there are one or two issues with it, and if we put it in we'd only get demands from clients in chilly places to disable it.

Rob

Sounds like a job for config.ini...

___________
Tony Fabris