I just got my radio module last week (HOORAY!!!) and also ordered the SG1 GM steering wheel to sony control stick interface to install in my 2000 pontiac grand prix. I got everything hooked up, but the controls don't seem to be working properly. The only control I have is track forward which is access using track down, and my volume up which is access using volume down. The play/pause button does seem to work though. Am I doing something wrong? I have a markII and upgraded to fw1.03 when I got the radio module, but don't know if there is something else I need to do to get the sony interface working.

Since you are the first user to have done this (OEM->Sony OEM interface->Tuner), it's going to be fun diagnosing this one.

For starters, go into Emplode's "configure player" screen and try setting the stalk to the opposite "handed-ness" of what it's currently set at. For instance, if it's set to left side, set it to right side.

Let us know if that works. If not, we'll start looking at other possible issues.

___________
Tony Fabris

Ideally, if you can do this: (may be hard, you need to get a serial cable to the empeg when it's in car)

stty raw -echo 19200
od -txC -v -w4 /dev/ttyS0

...and press buttons, you should get a line of output for each buttonpress (and release). Annotate the text with the labelling of buttons on your dash and we can look at it. v1.03 does have very narrow ranges for buttonpresses, v1.04 will fix this but the data from the process above would be useful.

Hugo

I'll break out the laptop and hook it up tonight and get those codes for you. Since my dash is still completly disassembled, this shouldn't be a big deal. Thanks for the speedy reply.

Remember to throttle the baud rate to 4800 for in-car serial. Either that or edit the config file to bump up the in-car baud rate. Details about this can be found elsewhere on the BBS.

Do try the left/right thing, too, though. I'd be curious to know if it helped.

___________
Tony Fabris

ok, i looked at my stalk config in emplode, and it was set for 'none'. i then tried both left and right. the only difference that made was the function of the volume down button on my steering wheel went from volume up, to volume down.. getting closer, but still no functionality on any other buttons. i'm getting the laptop read for a trip outside in the rain. have the results in a jiffy.

alright, here's the scoop so far... if i leave the stalk control on right, then i have proper control of volume down, previous track, play/mute, am/fm select. if i can only get the track next and volume up, i'll be all set... Now, i must be doing something really wrong with the debug thing. I'm not even sure where i need to be running those commands, on my laptop or logged into the empeg. also, which serial port do i use? the one on the player, or the one comming out of the harness? i'm really not all that new to linux, but the instructions were a little vague, or my head is still pounding from the moonshine last weekend.

cheers!

greg porras

Instructions for connecting to the player with the serial port are in the FAQ section of the BBS. Here is a direct link.

___________
Tony Fabris

Oh, and although it probably goes without saying, Hugo's commands can only be entered at the shell prompt if you've got the Developer version of the empeg player software installed. If you downloaded and installed 1.03 consumer, you need to snag and install 1.03 developer instead.

___________
Tony Fabris

i do have the dev. version loaded already, but i wasn't quite sure if i ran those commands at the empeg prompt, or on my laptop.

Is the serial port on the back of the empeg the same device as the one on the wiring harness or are they 2 seperate devices? I tried both lastnight, but wasn't sure which to use.

Now, I did get to a point where I issued the stty command, but after that, I couldn't type anything else at the empeg shell prompt. Did I do something wrong? If I had an idea on exactly what I'm trying to capture and from what device, it would make a lot more sense to me.

Sorry, part of the command got lost, it should have been

stty -echo raw 19200 *** /dev/ttyS0

(replace *** with the less than sign)

Hugo

Ahh ha! I really though I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I will give it another shot tonight.

I was thinking though... According the documentation that came with the SG1, there are 3 different configurations that can be found for the oem wiring harness. Mine I believe is the 37 pin version. The 20 pin version seem to use 2 wires for the steering control, while mine shows only 1 should be used. Maybe there is another wire that i need to connect, because, really, the only 2 button positions that aren't working right now are the track and volume up. I may throw the VM on there and do some poking around. I could also put the scope on the output of the SG1 to make sure I am or am not getting some sort of signal on the button positions that don't seem to be working. I'll post results tonight.

greg porras

ps. airplanes flying into big concrete structures really sucks. i pray for them all !!

If you're getting anything working, you have the right connection. One of the wires to the sony stalk is just for the "shift" button, which is activated when you push in the end - combined with twist this does disc+/disc-.

Hugo

Whew! Finally, i have the debug values for the button presses. Sorry it took so long, I came down with the crud and have been feeling pretty bad.

Interestingly, I had ctrl-c from the player to get this to work. When I used 'q', the tuner would power off and I would never get the serial dump. Here goes:

seek up 02 00 4c 4c
seek dn 02 00 5b 5b
preset 02 01 4c 4d
am/fm 02 00 af af

vol up 02 00 71 71
vol dn 02 00 85 85
play 02 00 18 18
mute 02 00 28 28


cheers, greg

Interestingly, I had ctrl-c from the player to get this to work. When I used 'q', the tuner would power off and I would never get the serial dump.

Nice catch. Good job. Hugo, you get those numbers?

___________
Tony Fabris

Ooop, forgot one thing. I don't know if this is needed or not, but just in case. On any button release, the values I got back were: 02 00 ff ff

greg

Yep, these are the values I was after. I can confirm that v1.04 will make your buttons work (though they may not do what they're labelled - eg, your "play" button is actually "source" on a real stalk). Thanks for taking the time to get me the list.

email me on [email protected] and I'll send you a beta to try (~4MB email). Nothing is different apart from the remote tweaks.

Hugo

Hi Hugo.

Would you tell us which values (ranges of values) are translated to which buttons?
This might
a) Help some people debug their problems
b) lead to the development of other remotes and/or interfaces for other remotes

cu,
sven

proud MkII owner (12GB blue/green/smoked, was #080000113 is #090001010)

Basically:

back/front - 0x3a
middle - 0xaf
front/back - 0x9a
att - 0x2a
back track - 0x5a
forward track - 0x48
source - 0x16
vol back - 0x84 (preset back has shift on - the byte before the adc value)
vol forward - 0x6e (preset forward has shift on)

There is a range of something like +-2 on v1.03 and +-6 or 8 on v1.04 as I remember. The back/forward stuff gets swapped depending if the stalk is left/right mounted.

Hugo

What analogue inputs do the reported numbers correspond to?

--
Toby Speight - 040103385

Hi Hugo,

I'm just trying to make sure I understood correctly how the stalk interface on the tuner module works.
The Tuner module translates the analog values it gets from the stalk remote into binary values (named as ADCx below). It then transmits those values to the empeg via the RxD line of the empeg's serial port (the one that is also available on its back/the serial connector of the sled). The format it uses to transmit the values simple: a four character string that consists of the following characters:
0x02 - indicates a command from the stalk interface
0x00 / 0x01 - indicates that the shift switch is off / on
ADC1 first sample read from the remote
ADC2 second sample read from the remote
Right?

cu,
sven

proud MkII owner (12GB blue/green/smoked, was #080000113 is #090001010)

Whohooo!! I eagerly await the beta. I will finally be able to go to a previous track and turn my volume down! Although turning the volume down does happen very often with this so excellent unit ;-)

greg

Oooops on the previous post. That should be "the volume does NOT go down very often."

"Just play it loud, OK?" Adrian Cronan, Goodmorning Vietnam

greg

No, the 4th byte is the checksum, from adding the data bytes in the packet. The tuner module already samples multiple times until the ADC value has stabilised before sending the packet.

Hugo

I think that at least one detail is wrong: it uses another serial port (/dev/ttyS0, the one on the back is ttyS1). It is, IIRC, 'normal' serial port, only using ttl levels (i.e. lacking converters shifting 0/5V to +/-12V). So, tuner does not interfere with external serial port use.

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

It does depend on what voltage you use across the stick. We (and sony) use 5v through 22k to the tip of the stalk connector. This means, if the stick puts 22k from the tip to ground, the tip will be at 2.5v and you'll get 0x80 (ie, half) out of the ADC.

If you want to know the voltages, just do (outputvalue/255)*5.0. If you want to know the resistor values, do (resvalue/(resvalue+22000))*255=outputvalue

Hugo

It's *inverted* serial TTL, as it gets buffered from 3.3v to 5v on the way out of the box.

Correct, it is another serial port and does not affect the standard serial on the unit.

Hugo

Hi.

I added a section on the stalk interface to my empeg tweaking page at http://www-new.incase.de/framed/empeg/, and hope that I got all the info in there right.

cu,
sven

proud MkII owner (12GB blue/green/smoked, was #080000113 is #090001010)

Does that mean a Mk2 without tuner could be adapted for 2 serial ports?

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

With the correct buffering, yes. Not sure what the player software would do, though; it may keep the port open even if a tuner is not found (as the tuner power is connected via amp remote, ISTR it polls the tuner every time the screen/amp remote is turned on).

Hugo

Hi.

It certainly looks as if this could be done.
I would love to see the specs for the tuner interface connector on the sleds wiring harness.

cu,
sven

proud MkII owner (12GB blue/green/smoked, was #080000113 is #090001010)

One important thing is to put current limiting resistors in the TX/RX path; the tuner module has these internally and later (mk2a) players have them on the main board. Without these, nasty things can happen (latchup-type things) when the player is inserted/removed. 10k in series is just fine and won't affect the workings of the port at all.

Hugo

Thanks for the detail, Hugo - this may be useful if I need to make my own convertor.

Just one clarification, on the hardware side - IIRC, it's a mono 3.5mm jack plug, and you say the tip is 5V through 22K; is the ring grounded, or do we use chassis ground? And how does the tuner read the shift button - is that through the ring? (Oops, that's more than one question - sorry!)

--
Toby Speight - 040103385

In reply to:

---

I added a section on the stalk interface to my empeg tweaking page at http://www-new.incase.de/framed/empeg/tweak.html#tuner, and hope that I got all the info in there right.

---

Great stuff, Sven.

Except for the broken "last-modified" at the foot

--
Toby Speight - 040103385

It's a stereo jack; the middle ring is the "shift" control (either 5v or 0v).

The ring furthest from the tip is ground, yes.

Hugo

Great stuff, Sven.

Thanks.

Except for the broken "last-modified" at the foot

Fixed that.

cu,
sven

proud MkII owner (12GB blue/green/smoked, was #080000113 is #090001010)

It worked! I now have full control from my steering wheel. I am still having one problem which I do not think is the empeg. The volume up button is very flaky. I've tested the voltage drop on the control line entering the SG1 and that seems good. I haven't tested the output on the miniplug which goes into the radio module. So I may have a bad SG1 module. I'll try to dork around with that this weekend. But, it does work occationally. I can, however, get volume up by pressing the volume down button once, then use the seek up to control the volume which works out quite nicely.

Happily thumbing through my music,
greg porras

Greetings!

I would love to see the detail of what you did. I have a 1998 GM car with steering wheel controls, and I would be interested in details. Thanks!

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (96GB Smoke)

It was actually pretty easy. I ended up ordering the GMSW1 from Crutchfield (you can find it cheaper at other places). This is the GM converter which will hook up to the control wire from your steering wheel. Then you just plug in the mini-jack into the radio module which is then hooked up to the empeg. The only big problem I had was solved very quickly by Hugo sending me a beta of the player software. It works great! If you need more help, just let me know. I may actually take some pictures of my setup and post it up on my website.

cheers
greg

Greetings!

Very cool! Thanks! I will try this one out. Up until now, I have been content with the buttons on the player, but this makes things even easier!!!

Paul G.
SN# 090000587 (96GB Smoke)

I can't seem to get Ctrl-C or q to work. q powers off the player and nothing else will work. Ctrl-C stops the unit, but I can't type anything else.

Here is what I get:

>-l
"CêBåóï©+×'ûn¾šîzKJùa µ¥C[Mú¹ î å å
îè?èõÚ¡í矹‡c¨JÜqûüþ–/J\ó
ú%B‰Þ�c.BK`
ÄïtŸ!üè†-ì”…Õ‘�rate: 4800, disabling logging


q
j ^ü,áË.âÖ¨


This is with Hyperterm open at 4800,8,N,1 first. then powering up the Empeg. I am using the cable that came with the Empeg, so I am connecting to the serial jack on the unit not on the wiring harness. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?

Proud Owner of MK2 080000558 - 18gb Blue

If you are trying this with the unit in the car, then you must be at 4800 to type the commands to the player. Once the player exits, you must switch to 115200 to view the shell prompt. At least that's what I ended up doing. If you are undocked, then set at 115200. That should do the trick.

greg
080000127 blue 40gig

Ok, Got that part figured out. I have the bash prompt.

I type the two commands as per instructions:
stty -echo raw 19200 < /dev/ttyS0
od -txC -v -w4 /dev/ttyS0

It doesn't echo anything back into Hyperterm. I can Crtl-C and get back to the bash prompt. Is there something else I should be doing here?



Proud Owner of MK2 080000558 - 18gb Blue

did you make sure to ctrl-c out of the player first to get to the shell prompt? I'm also assuming you HAVE the converter and radio module, right?

greg

Oops, I don't have the controller mentioned. But I do have a Sony stick controller with the radio module. Does this only work on the SG controller. It looked like it would work either way.

I press 'q' to quit the player. Is that not enough? When do I press the crtl-C, before "q" or after "q" or instead of "q"?

Proud Owner of MK2 080000558 - 18gb Blue

"Q" will shut down the player software gracefully, which goes through its normal shut down routine, which turns off the radio. So that's not what you want to do. Do not press Q.

Ctrl-C drops directly to the shell prompt without going through the graceful shutdown, so the radio remains active. That's what you need to do. Press Ctrl-C.

___________
Tony Fabris

I'm sorry, yes it will work. Like Tony said below, you do need to exit the player using CTRL-C, not 'Q'

greg

Got it. That all worked. I've got the codes to echo.

Next question. Are we gonna be able to edit a file on the Empeg to accept different Sony stick controllers? Or do I have to resolder all the resistors in the unit to get it to do what I want.

I have a Sony RM X38 and it doesn't work "out the box."

Who knows what file needs to be hacked? I need a starting point to reconfigure.

Proud Owner of MK2 080000558 - 18gb Blue

Hm, a simple external config file that pairs ADC value ranges to their buttonpress equivalents sounds like a reasonable request for one of upcomming betas (not the first one, though!)...

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

In the mean time, where is this data stored? Does anyone have a clue?

Proud Owner of MK2 080000558 - 18gb Blue

There is no file, no. Send me the codes & I'll see if they're compatible with v1.04/v2.00.

Hugo

Remote Codes for Sony RM-X38

02 00 09 09 - Source
02 00 1f 1f - Mode
02 00 13 13 - Mute
02 00 99 99 - Off
02 00 00 00 - BTM
02 00 b6 b6 - Sel
02 00 d9 d9 - DSPL
02 00 2b 2b - Preset Up
02 00 39 39 - Preset Down
02 00 6b 6b - Seek Up
02 00 81 81 - Seek Down
02 00 47 47 - Volume Up
02 00 59 59 - Volume Down

Thanks for looking into this.


Proud Owner of MK2 080000558 - 18gb Blue