Ok I have an idea,,, if you take the button and light kit from http://www.hulkster.net/empeg/buttons/ web site (Waiting for him to contact me)

Instead of Routing them into the empeg circit I suggest using the Empty Connector on the back (I don't use the aux in but there is an Open spot other then that)

You can route the light controls to the dash Dimmer on the car/truck this would allow 3 things

1. The Lights won't blink when you press a button
2. You can control the brightness
3. You don't need to take the chance of Soldering something wrong and blowing up your Empeg

Ground is common so you only need to route out one wire to the connector on the back of the empeg and route that to the car dimmer Via Some sort of voltage step down system (Or get 12V leds)

You might need to drill a small hole in the board to pass the wire(s) for the leds out to the conector


I am sure alot of you are smarter then I am give it some thought and let me know what you think.

Joe

In reply to:

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3. You don't need to take the chance of Soldering something wrong and blowing up your Empeg

You might need to drill a small hole in the board to pass the wire(s) for the leds out to the conector

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yeah cause drilling the board is much safer than soldering...

I can see his point, I for one don't want to take a chance of blowing something up... But after looking inside the empeg I think there is more then enough room to run a wire back to the connector like he suggested (but with out drilling a hole..

You can SuperGlue the led's or Use a bit of RTV

Take it from me... Brian's system is the best.

I once thought as you did, that it would be easier to simply steal power from somewhere else and hard-wire the lighting. But now that I've done it "Brian's Way", I can see how much better it is.

Consider the following:

- There are already traces on the display board for the LEDs. To do it your way would require running extra wires of your own.

- Dismantling your player, for example to work on the drives, would become difficult (working around the extra wires). Brian's method is self-contained within the display board itself. Even the procedure for removing the display board doesn't change after doing it Brian's way.

- Under Brian's system, you're using already-regulated power from the display electronics. If you hard-wired the power to something external, you would also have to deal with the voltage regulation, which would needlessly complicate things.

- Brian's system will work in any vehicle, with no modification to the sled wiring. Even if the vehicle doesn't have a dimmer wire or if the dimmer wire is not hooked up.

- Brian's system allows the button LEDs to have a software-controlled dimmer. This allows for some very useful features: 1) Control the brightness level with a menu instead of by messing with hard-wired electronics. 2) Buttons go dim when the player is put into standby mode. 3) Buttons can have different levels of brightness for home and car use.

- The fact that the buttons blink when you press them is not a problem. To me, it looks like a feature, not an annoyance.

What do you gain by hard-wiring it? Okay, the blink goes away and you don't have to solder the SMT resistor pack. But I think hard-wiring it would be just as difficult (if not moreso), and you would lose important features in the process.

So does Brian pay you a flat rate or on a per-sale basis?

Hey, I'm not changing anything here. They still need to get the cast buttons from him either way.

OK, I see. I was just kidding anyway.

I know, sorry. I shouldn't get defensive when someone jokes with me.

I agree the Pre-built system Rocks but I would be willing to bet I havn't soldered in longer then some of you have been alive So I am pretty sure I would cook it......

What I suggested was run 2 little 30 gauge Wires around the display you don't need remove the display, bend the tabs or try and solder SMT..

Plus I took the Empeg to the local electronics shop and they told me 100 bucks to do the job for me (thats cheaper then buying an SMT soldering iron)
so I am torn I know any soldering I do will look like a a big metal Bird with Tummy problems Flew over it. I can take the chance the local Shop can do it... or I can Do what was suggested and Route wires around.

As for Brian (he did a great Job figuring this out and no matter what way I choose he gets the money for the kit)

I just can't bring my self to risk a 60 G Unit I paid full price for.


I think I can remember Ohms law and get the right resistor and do the wire run around I'll post pics once I get the kit installed