Greetings!

Well, I have just completed the illuminated button hack on my primary player, Traveller. I would like to thank the following people:

Mark: Installation of the kit - I still can't see how a human could solder that stuff!!!
Brian: For developing and making the kit and the way cool smoke (and other) buttons!!!
DarkStorm: For the great smoke lens that matches the car perfectly!!!
Rob V.: For the excellent wood fascia!!!

As you can tell, very little of the original face is left, and I did very little of the actual work...

In any case. The smoke buttons combined with the smoke lens are great. The smoke buttons look almost black in indoor / standard lighting. Under bright conditions, they have an almost amber cast to them. Imagine clear glass streaked with tar (think about some of those non-smoking ads, and you get the idea). When lit, the VFD has the same blue/green very common with VFD dashboards. The buttons are an almost white, but with a smokey look from the buttons, giving a rather nice effect.

Unfortunately, the digital camera I use did not get the colors right, and I do not have access to better at the moment. For a general idea, the following shots were taken from a flatbed scanner. Primitive, but it gives some idea of what it would look like in bright light.

First, the displays - before and after. It is very hard to see the milky white LEDs in the button sockets, but they are there. The ring around the knob is now a four LED model. More symmetrical, very nice!



The empeg itself is quite nice, with the wooden fascia. The brightness of the flatbed scanner washes out the display and illumination greatly - I would think this the equivalent of very bright sunlight. It is much brighter in real life, room light or darkness, but I have not been able to capture it well with the equipment I have here at the moment. Tony's shot comes very close, but the VFD is much more VFD blue/green / cyan than it shows.

wow.

Paul just installed the buttons on my Empeg (from Mark's handiwork, et. al.). My hat's off to everyone who made this upgrade possible. WOW!!!

Man, i want the 4 led ring o' lights... i've only got the three. Though the thought of soldering that again brings fear to my eyes.

Is there any way to discover how far down Brian's queue I am? :-( How far along is the wait list? I recall sending the email ages ago.

Calvin

I thought you said you were "soldering impaired?" If you can do the button hack, you shouldn't have any trouble installing our digital out boards! Good job.

Stu

I think he's mailing his display boards to Mark to do the soldering.

Greetings!

mailing his display boards to Mark

That is certainly the case - in fact I just shipped two more to Mark for his installation. The soldering involved in the button hack is way beyond my skills. As it is, I haven't touched a soldering iron in at least a decade.

installing our digital out boards

Any more word on the digital out boards? Last I heard, you were thinking about late July. I noticed that the signup page is down. I was also re-reading the thread. Pity about TOSLINK not being available on dual drive units. Any hope of finding a way around that?

They are available in the dual drive config. The PCB mount version of the optical module does not fit in the dual drive config. The panel mount version of the module fits fine. Also there was a back order on the modules delaying the availability of the optical board models until mid October, but we found a new source for the modules. All models will be available concurrently. The inevitable pushing back of the deadline has occurred. Production will begin mid August. We have all the parts in except for the PCBs and the optical modules. The optical modules are expected today and the PCBs, the 15th of this month. The new modules are like nothing I've ever seen before. See the front page of the web site for details. Yes, we took down the survey intentially. It was scheduled to go off on July 31st. That's what happened. We only wanted to determine the level of demand. It served it's purpose. Thanks everyone!

I have been a little slow updating the site and compiling the manual lately due to my main computer essentially dying. It seems my Mac no longer "roolz" .

Greetings!

Very cool about the connector and availability!!! Are you, or do you know anyone, who will be offering installation as a service? I will take a look at the updated site! Thanks!

We will be offering installation. $125/unit with optical models. Other models $100. I know its steep, but it's very tedious, precise work. The hardest part is making the rectangular hole for the optical modules which most people want. There are no metal punches that make that size hole. We are seriously thinking of having a custom punch made. I will update the products section of the site to include installation info and reflect availability of the optical modules later today.

Stu

I work as a progressive die designer and I might be able to help with the square knock out in the chassis. What is the size that you need? Are dead sharp corners a must, or can you live with a .010 radius on the corners? Anyone know what type of metal is used for the chassis of the player? It looks like some sort of stainless steel. Also what is the material condition IE: tensile or Rockwell hardness using the C scale?

I believe the case is around 19 to 20 gauge. It is .04" (1.02mm) thick and is some kind of slightly magnetic stainless steel. I don't know what the hardness is though. Yes, I'm pretty sure that a hole with .01" radiused corners would work fine. In fact, looking at the hole in my unit, I doubt our hand fabricated corners are that square. The dimension of the pertinent dimension of the Sharp module we are going to be using is 9.5 by 8.2 mm, so I guess a knock out tool making a hole .379" x .327" would work just fine.

Can you supply a custom knock out tool that can be operated with a wrench or some other hand tool? Any ideas on cost? Please do get back with us either through the BBS or e-mail (available on the "Contact Us" link at Eutronix.com).

Thanks,

Stu

okay just to confuse matters a MK2 is stainless steel of unknown hardness but i don't imagine it being anything too excotic and the MK2As are actually a mild steel with a brushed stainless finish.

In reply to:

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a MK2 is stainless steel of unknown hardness but i don't imagine it being anything too excotic and the MK2As are actually a mild steel with a brushed stainless finish

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I would have to disagree. The manual for my RioCar says the case is stainless steel. Aren't all RioCars MK2As? Unless the manual is in error, would this not disprove the above statement? My rare earth magents are hardly interested in the case at all. If it were truly mild steel, they should have held on tight.

Anyway, the case wasn't too hard to drill or file, so I don't think that a die for the knock out cutters would be too hard to make.

Stu

As far as I know they are all stainless steel. Only the sled was switched to mild steel (not least because the stainless tabs were so difficult to bend!).

Rob

okay that must of been what threw me off my mistake.

Wonder when the first person to polish theirs to mirror finish will be?

In reply to:

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Wonder when the first person to polish theirs to mirror finish will be?

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I've actually thought about doing this. I have a bit of experience polishing metals and could certainly tackle the project. The problem is, it would obliterate the labeling on the case. Also, if the unit were to be docked, it would show long horizontal scratches almost immediately. Not sure it's worth all the minuses given the time involved. If someone wants me to try on theirs I could do it for a price .

Stu

Any word on what's happening with the illuminated buttons?
I've emailed several times but get absolutely no responses. The last email was way back on May 10th. Is the backlog that long or is there problems with it or did he just stop doing them?
Anybody know?

As far as we know, it's just the backlog. As per the note on his page in gigantic letters.

Well there's the problem I can't see the 'gigantic letters' from here. I wasn't sure if something had happened since May 10 that the page was last updated on his site. OK I'll wait some more.....tick tick tick.

Are they done yet?...................................are they done yet?

Damn, I'm probably getting pushed to the end of line everytime I emailed him.

Hi,

The kit must be in high demand. For me, it's the most anticipated mod I've been waiting to do to my empeg. Brian must be swamped. Add to that, I'm sure he has a busy life like the rest of us.

Instead of moaning, how about helping out? Can anyone else construct these kits? I'm sure Brian will welcome some competition!


Regards,
Aragon

Greetings!

Not to be annoying, but I did promise a decent photo when I got one. Here is a family tree. Sorry about the dark shot, but I wanted to catch the lighting of the empeg's at their best. This is with the 4 LED ring. Again, many, many numerous thanks to Brian and Mark!

Those are absolutely gorgeous.

Here is a family tree.

Hey, how come he gets three LED kits and I can't even get one

Greetings!

I ordered and specified the full quantity when the initial batch was announced.