docking station question

I'm in the process of making my own docking station, got all the parts and ready to wire it up.

One question, I'm powering via the docking connector, if I do this do I need to splice the ignition sense wire with the permanent 12v power in to make it turn on?

Yup

You could also do what some of us have done and have actual jacks for AC power and ethernet right there, and don't worry about powering from the docking connector at all.

I don't know how well the power connector is mounted inside, but I'm kind of loathe to use that connector when the docking connector can do it and I know it's not going to (say) break the motherboard or break off it.

Instead I think I'm going to put a barrel plug receptacle on the power leads of one of the cables I got from Shonky and just plug a regular power brick into it.

Well, I think now that Mark has integrated a way into hijack to determine if the player is docked or not, it is a bad idea to dock the power connected. It's not very sturdy, and the AC sensor is known to break.

Matthew

I don't know how well the power connector is mounted inside, but I'm kind of loathe to use that connector when the docking connector can do it and I know it's not going to (say) break the motherboard or break off it.

*shrug* Suit yourself. Jim and I haven't had any problems.

The trick is getting it perfectly in the exact/correct place before gluing it, allowing the glue to harden with the player docked, and then making sure it's sturdy and solid there by adding extra glue. In my case, I trimmed the black plastic shroud on the connector so that it was flush against that board to make absolutely sure the glue didn't break loose. (The connector does not penetrate through the board, it rests against it.)

I could see that if your player had a problematic AC adapter jack, or if you used the wrong size connector, or if the connector was crooked or didn't dock cleanly every time, then yes, it could be a problem. But I dock and undock my player from those two docks with that connector multiple times per day, and haven't had a problem with the jack yet.

Well, I think now that Mark has integrated a way into hijack to determine if the player is docked or not, it is a bad idea to dock the power connector.

I'd love to use Mark's method, but unfortunately, his code can't hook into the protected part of the flash boot-up system and thus you still have this problem. I like to just dock the player and *know* that all of its connections are hooked up and it's ready to do anything I need to do (FTP, Serial, Kernel flash, full Upgrade, whatever) without having to fake it out.

I agree that, on the face of it, it sounds like a bad idea to dock the power connector. Jim and I took a risk with our players, and it's paid off for us. I could see how it might be a problem in some cases, though.

Check it out, went ahead and used the docking connector, hooked up the serial connector (haven't tested it yet), I think it looks pretty good.

Hey, thats pretty sweet. Is that an old pc speaker cabinet that you used? It looks like it was made for an empeg.

Here's the back

To be honest I'm not really sure what it was for , some kind of REALLY old external CD rom setup, with a line in, aux in and mic in? It also had a really old SCSI adaptor on back. The thing that throws me is it had no power supply (I had to add that from another old external scsi drive case)

I had to heavily modify the front to accomodate the empeg, painted it, added ethernet, serial, power, power switch, and re-did the audio connectors. Oh and I put a fan behind one of the speaker grills.

Very impressive! How's its weight? Is it heavy enough to stay put when you insert and remove the player?

not quite, you still have to brace it a little, but it's not too bad.

I also still need to get the ethernet set up, right now I just have a cable that hangs out a little. at some point I want to get it dockable.

ok... testing the serial, I can see the information on the empeg via hyperterm but it doesn't appear to take any keystrokes?

I've got em wired up like this
8 - serial pin 2 (RD)
9 - serial pin 3 (TD)

What is your speed set to? By default, the serial while docked is 4800.

You got the ground wired up?

- Trevor

testing the serial, I can see the information on the empeg via hyperterm but it doesn't appear to take any keystrokes?

When you're not using the dock (serial cable plugged straight into empeg with AC adaptor), does Hyperterminal work?

If hyperterminal works outside of the dock, but does not work inside the dock, then check:

- Your settings (may need to be 4800 for the dock, or you may need to add 115200 to config.ini on player).
- Make sure flow control is off.
- Your wiring (need pins 2, 3, 5 which are RX TX and Ground), try swapping RX and TX.

I can just use a null modem adaptor for the swap right? Looks like I'll need to add the ground

If you're using Hijack, don't forget to connect together the appropriate two "tuner" pins on the docking connector so that Hijack will default to "AC/Home" operation automatically when docked.

-ml

I use hyperterm all the time at work (outside the dock) I would test it here at home... but (in another thread) I lost all my mp3's on my disk, so I'm in the process of dowloading everything... I'll test when it finishes the current playlist.

I did add the ground to serial pin 5 and swap 2 and 3.... so now I don't need a null modem, I can see the empeg info on boot but still can't enter anything. However I've had issues like this before, ended up using different terminal software and it worked. I'm going to try that next.

Mlord...

Where can that information be found ?

Had a look at the hijack website and it only says it was added and nothing in the faq.

Looks like it also time to upgrade my Hijack.

Thanks

C.

I saw exactly this the other day on my Empeg. What's the last thing displayed on the console?

I think I fixed it by forcing it into home/AC mode and rebooting via hijack. Never had that problem in the past, though.

Paul

Pins 6 and 7.... in this thread.

It's automaticly going into home/Ac mode due to the pin configuration mentioned above. From the console there are no noticable errors, I do honestly think its a terminal software issue, when I hit "q" it puts a ' instead of a q..... so I think it's a software issue on my machine... things are getting a little strange on that box anyway.

Brett, did you ever get a fix to your problem? I am having the same issue while building my home dock... I see output from the serial port, but I cannot enter any data through the serial port. I have car_rate=115200 under the [serial] header in config.ini, and pin 5 on my serial port is grounded with the large ground pin on the docking connector. Not sure what else to do here.

I gave up on that, I never could get the serial running right. Sorry Man!

Lopan, Mark helped me find my problem in the thread here. Maybe my problem was the same as yours? Were you counting the pins from the wrong side?