Ok, subject described effect, but not the whole story. #1 response I would give anyone with this problem: Bad/incorrect wiring. Not a problem with my installation.

Car: Acura Integra GSR Coupe (1995)
Player: MK2a (problem duplicated with 2.0b11 and 2.0b3 - timing details of this report specific to 2.0b3)

The empeg's illumination sense is tied directly to the same wire as the sense line for my Clarion head unit. The Clarion does not suffer from the problem I am about to describe.

I have the empeg set to sense +12v on the illumination line. While the engine is running, with my lights OFF (0v), depressing the brake pedal for any length of time will cause the empeg display to dim for a little less than one second. The time the display stays dim is a constant. It is never variable, regardless of how long I hold down the brake pedal.

If I depress the brake again, the empeg will NOT dim. UNLESS, I wait at least 7 seconds (I have timed this many times to get to this number). With the ignition not running, it seems to be at least 12 seconds, but sometimes much longer (beyond 20 or 30).

Again, the Clarion never dims its display in these instances. And when actually turning on the headlights, the Clarion reacts to the +12v faster than the empeg. Slightly faster when applying +12v and dimming, and MUCH faster when dropping back to 0v and restoring original brightness.

I am guessing that applying the brake must somehow apply a small voltage to the illumination line, by no fault of my own installation. This small voltage is enough to get the empeg to trigger its dimmer - but for only a split second for some reason. I have no clue about the delays between replication (as mentioned above, the 7 second timing was observed with b3 - it is similar for b11, but I can't say for sure it's also 7 seconds). I don't feel like ripping open the dash to connect my multimeter to actually read the values. I may try probing the illumination pin on the dock on the weekend if I can manage to squeeze my hand and the probe pin in there.

I hope we can see some comments by Hugo or anyone else familiar enough with the way the sense logic works on the player. I rolled back to 2.0b3 tonight to test (as mentioned) but didn't have time to go all the way back to 1.03. I have no idea why I didn't notice this problem when I first started using the player. I did notice it a while back, but only last week did I trace it down to the brake (I believe Hugo might have mentioned Turn Signals a while back and I thought that might have originally been the problem).

Apart from this player interaction weirdness, there is something out of the ordinary with my rear lighting right now. I have done no electrical work on my car since the installation back in November. I noticed a week ago that my two rear markers were blown (they illuminate when the headlights are on and aren't affected by depressing the brake). The other strange lighting behaviour I've had is as follows:

Lights off: Lighs off in rear. Normal.
Lights off & press brake: left tail light comes on full illumination (both elements in bulb), right side lights only single element.

Lights on: both tail lights illuminate normally (1 element per bulb)
Lights on & press brake: left tail light comes on full illumination (both elements in bulb), right side turns completely off.

This has perplexed me a bit. It was after nboticing this that I found my corners were out. I have to replace my corner bulbs this week to see if they have any effect on the over-all circuit. As mentioned, I didn't touch any wiring recently. I replaced rear rotors, pads and calipres a few weeks ago, but that just seems like an odd coincidence (there wasn't any wiring to be seen right next to those mechanical parts).

I can't stand oddities like this. The thought of having to sort through all the wiring in the vehicle doesn't leave me too excited. There's no way I want to rip up my interior again... I still have easy access to some of the wiring at the rear (and don't see anything wrong with it...)

Bruno