I note the user manual states that an Empeg should not be mounted at more than 16 degrees to the horizontal.
I'm planning on mounting it flush with the dash in a 300ZX, which has quite a sloping dash and will possibly exceed 16 degrees.

What is the reasoning behind the manual stating this limit? Is it a hard disk issue? What can I expect.... constant skipping, occasional skipping, damage to the disk?

Ben

It's to do with the shock mounting in the empeg. If you mount it at an odd angle then there is a chance that the HD tray will come off the mountings.

That said altman has one in a NSX which is at a pretty acute angle and if he is confindent enough you should be fine so don't worry unless you have a MK1 with less secure drive rubbers.

Mine's been mounted at about 30 degrees for a couple years and it's worked great. And this is not a smooth riding vehicle...it's a 15 yr old SUV. YMMV, so don't blame me if your drive goes belly up. It comes down to the fact that I'd rather be able to see the display on my Empeg and replace a hard drive occasionally should the need arise. Luckily it hasn't.

Apart from shock mounting issues, there it the matter of drive spindle bearings. If you rotate the drive when spun up in any plane other than the one paralell to platters (i.e. perpendicular to drive axis), the bearing will be loaded laterally, for which it was not designed, theoretically shortening the drive's life. As tha car mostly rotates in horizontal plane (hopefully), the drive will feel best if it itself is horizontal.

However, I don't recall anybody reporting a drive failure that could be attributed to this.

You may find this writeup useful for the 300ZX.

As regards the angle: this console was about 20 degrees. What that means is that the drive tray inside the player is no longer horizontal. 16 degrees was determined by the size of the drives and tray inside the player (due to the DIN case size), and common installation angles in consoles. The drive tray hangs by 4 rubber, conical shock mounts. These are designed to work in tension, vertically. If you mount the player so that the tray is no longer horizontal, then the tray "swings" back and forward, instead of up and down, inside the player. Hence, on a large shock, the tray tends to knife forwards against the display cable, and back against the power and audio harness. The shock rating of the drive assumes vertical shock, so if a shock occurs off-axis, then you've no idea what damage will occur to the drive, which could in the end shorten drive life.

You shouldn't be too worried about being slightly off 16 degrees: experience seems to show that it doesn't affect drive life too much - for example, my own Mk 1 is mounted horizontally (therefore putting the drives at a -16 degree angle) in a Mini - and despite two crashes, a broken wheel rim in a pothole, and the standard suspension quality of the Mini (ie., none whatsoever) the drives are the original ones, and seem to be in good order after some 4 years' use. If you mounted vertically so that the shock mounts are effectively useless, then yes, I would worry

Maybe you should mail ANdrew (the owner of the ZX in the install I did with him) to see what his experiences have been.

the bearing will be loaded laterally, for which it was not designed, theoretically shortening the drive's life

Theoretically....

But given that the huge majority of drive failures are caused by head crashes or failures of the electronics, it isn't anything I'd worry about.

I don't think I've ever heard of a drive failure caused by worn out spindle bearings.

tanstaafl.

It happens a lot in older Unix and VAX machines. I'll bet quality on such things has improved dramatically since then, though.

But given that the huge majority of drive failures are caused by head crashes or failures of the electronics, it isn't anything I'd worry about.

Honestly, I never know why a given drive fails when it does. All I ever know is that I start gettting errors and I replace the thing. For all I know, every failure I've had could have been spindle bearings.

Or gnomes.

I'm starting to wonder about gnomes possibly being the culprit in many things. Sometimes I think I catch a glimpse of one out of the corner of my eye, but it scurries out of sight before I can make a positive identification.

I have mine mounted completely vertically in my jeep.
Its mounted in the console between the seats.
So far no problems. Worse comes to worse, the drive craps out, and I clone my spare.
An acceptable risk...

In reply to:

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Or gnomes.

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Or pixies, nasty little fsckers. I swear they keep punching reset on our server in the middle of the night.

Or gnomes.

1) Mess up Tony's disks
2) ?
3) Profit.

In reply to:

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Or gnomes.

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You're confused. Gnomes don't exist.



What you saw was a gremlin.

1) Mess up Tony's disks
2) ?
3) Profit.

ROFLMAO

PM Dr_DOS, he has a 300ZX, too.

You should find pics in robriccs Album from the Euro Meet 2003....

cheers, Thomas

Are you talking about a Z32?
I haven't had any issues mounting the empeg in my dash that way so far.

Peter