No, didn't notice it on the previous one. Will try and find some time to have a good play with them both. As the problem is a little intermittant it could take a little time to give it a good test through. Have had a busy weekend (visitors) so haven't really had a chance to check the new one again properly.

I've lengthened the glitch timeout from 1/20th second to 1/8th second to see if it helps Derek and anyone else. You can download the upgrade from:

http://www.empeg.com/downloads/car2-kernel-v2.00-beta3-rotaryfix3.upgrade

Patch (from v2.00-beta3):

http://www.empeg.com/downloads/car2-kernel-v2.00-beta3-rotaryfix3.diff.gz

If anyone is suffering from this problem and has the ability to compile their own kernels I'd be interested in knowing what divisor of HZ in the declaration of ROTARY_GLITCH_TIMEOUT_JIFFIES works best for you.

That's insane! At any rate, what's been discussed before involves unofficial support from the empeg team, so you'd presumably have to pay for it.

Mmm, I'm sure that isn't a UK law; are you sure the law is not that they have to offer to fix it (ie, have the capability), but may charge you for it when out of warranty?

As stated, the law would seem to mean that if you had a washing machine that broke down out of warranty then it'd have to get fixed for free...

Yes, if your control broke out of warranty then it would be a chargeable repair, as it would with any such product. The kernel patches posted here by mike are an attempt to resolve the issue in software; it's not that the control is broken, it's just that as they get older, they age (as with any switch) and you get "noise" on the rotary signals.

Hugo

Mmm, I'm sure that isn't a UK law; are you sure the law is not that they have to offer to fix it (ie, have the capability), but may charge you for it when out of warranty?

I think it's one of those things that's up to a judge to decide what is "reasonable" if there's a dispute. Since most consumer electronics have a very short warranty period (90 days for most of the stuff I've seen), I'm sure that your one-year warranty would be considered more than reasonable by any judge.

In the US, we have something equivalent, called "lemon laws", which (if I understand it correctly) are mainly meant to prevent fly-by-night organizations from dumping a bunch of useless crap on the market and hiding behind a limited warranty term to protect themselves.

It's not the kind of thing empeg needs to worry about, I don't think, since you guys make a quality product and are very good about backing it up. I don't get the feeling you guys would quibble over a calendar date if the product had a genuine defect.

Nope, they have to fix it for free. Of course, 'reasonable' is a very vague term, so in practice most vendors will refuse to repair something for free after the warranty has expired because they know no one will go though the trouble of a court case to make them do it...

Yes, if a washing machine broke in a fundamental way (i.e. it doesn't clean your clothes anymore) and it isn't your own fault or caused by outside influences and it's a lot earlier than it could reasonably be expected to break from old age (say one month after the warranty has expired), your vendor would have to have it repaired for free.

Of course a good vendor would do that anyway, regardless of what the law says.

/Pepijn

Does the issue have anything to do with the amount of use the rotary encoder gets?
or does this also happen even if you don't use the rotary control and just use the remote & stalk.

Cheers,
Jaidev

Some notebook series we repair have known minor defects, discovered after manufacture and also discovered after these notebooks have been sold to the end user, not recalled. So say Compaq has an issue with one of their (old) series the LCD screen all of a sudden goes white intermittently during startup. Now if a notebook comes in for repair and is out of warranty for another totally different issue, or this particullar issue, Compaq honors the warranty since this is a known defect. These LCD screens run in cost of about $1500.

cheers,
Jaidev

It's the amount of use it gets, mainly. There is probably an issue with the normal tarnishing of contacts too, which happens over time, but I suspect we're talking about a much longer time period for that (like 5 years at least, depending on the atmosphere).

Hugo

I've had no feedback from this at all. Is this because it works perfectly? It doesn't work at all? Maybe everyone has given up on v2.0-beta3 and gone back to v1.03?

Yeah, who's been having the trouble with the knob? Speak up!

I know I was having a SLIGHT bit of trouble with the knob, but not enough to be sure if your new timings really solved it or not. I know I haven't had any trouble with the new timings as far as regular operation is concerned, so I know that the timings at least didn't make things worse for the rest of us. I haven't seen the volume jump since 2.0b3.

I have this problem on a brand new Mk2a, but I have only just started using the timing fix patch today (as part of the latest hijack kernel) so I can't comment yet.

Sorry, have been busy and wanted to give fix2 a proper check out before trying fix3. Actually had fix2 jump backwards the other day, so upgraded to fix3. Sitll not sure if I am happy with it - haven't had much time for any empeging lately . Will let you know as soon as I am happy (or not) with it

Since installing a recent hijack kernel, with the knob fix I haven't noticed the problem reoccuring.

I guess next time the designers oughta use an optical dial for longer life.

Yep, there's a rule in engineering: if it's mechanical try and find another way of doing it 'cause it's going to break some time!

Yes, but optical rotary encoders are generally a different kettle of fish - ie, they're much rarer, maybe 5x more expensive, and usually much bigger than the electromechanical ones.

Great for home stereos with the smooth "endless" rotary controls, but not good if you have <5mm of height above the PCB to fit the switch body into!

Hugo

Sorry Hugo, wasn't criticising your choice. Was just stating a law of nature.

Just tested the rotaryfix3. It's not perfect but far good enough to live with. I can notice very few jumps in the wrong direction, but i could discover them only in menu-mode, using rotary for left/right. In volume-mode it's not noticeable. Let's hope, the timing would match if the rotary-control gets worse in future.

Thanx for doing it in software, so i can keep my player....

Even with a new rotary control how long will that one last? or are they using a different part to the origonal.

I've only had mine 6 or 7 mounths and it's started doing it.

Mpcheese, what version of the player software are you running?

If you are using version 2.0 beta 13, you should not be having any trouble with your rotary control. If you are having trouble, please contact support.

Note that this is a very old thread, no one has been reporting rotary control troubles recently since there was new software released that fixed the problems.