I have my empeg installed in my car correctly with the ignition sense wire connected. However I cannot turn on the empeg before turning on the ignition. After I turn on the ignition, I can turn on the empeg, then I can turn off the car, then empeg goes off. Then I can turn the empeg back on via the front panel because it is only in standyby mode.

What I would like is to be able to turn the unit on without having to turn the ignition on first. But the empeg will still turn off when the ignition sense wire goes from 12V+ to 0V. This is currently how VW radios behave.

turn the unit on without having to turn the ignition on first

The usual answer to achieve this is to hook up the ignition sense wire to 12V-permanent too. This will cause the player to 'think' the car is always running, so you can turn the player 'on' and 'off' at will.

Of course, there's no way the player can see you killing ignition, so you'd have to dutyfully turn off the player manually all the time and not forget this; penalty could well be that the amp completely drains the battery [grin].

I once suggested that the player have a 'max-time setting' that would make it turn-off itself when left alone for an extended period of time. This never made it to the list of enhancements, though. Your suggestion (the way VW has done this) is even better.

How about combining our wishes:
- player turns off when ignition killed
- player can be switched-on anytime
(time period within which it needs to be re-activated is set to 00 minutes?)
- player will switch-off when it is left un-touched (no commands received) for xx minutes (new emplode setting?

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

This is problematic due to it requiring a change to the way the empeg works when powered down. It will probably happen on future designs, but the way the current design works there's no way to power on the frontboard (where the buttons live) when the main power is down - only the power control PIC runs on the main board.

Hugo

does turning the unit on from standby different than from turuning it on with the ignition wire? I figured the empeg was just using the ignition wire as a sense, not to actually power the unit, 'cause the unit works w/o the igntion wire.

yeah the VW also has the timeout feature.. if the radio is on for 1 hour w/o input it will shut off.. (always happens when I'm washing the car)

so am I understanding that there is no way for the unit to be turned on from a complete powered off state with out having voltage on the ingnition wire?

Yes, basically. Once the empeg "commits suicide" (tells the power control PIC to turn the main CPU off) it can't come back from that state without the accessory line wobbling.

Actually, it can, on a timer; in theory it could be made so that if you kept pressing a button, it'd wake up every minute and see if anyone was pressing buttons, then go back to sleep if there was no action. Not very neat, though.

Hugo

well that seems kinda limited then.. ooh well.. maybe I'll wait for the hardware mod ;)

It's not a "mod-able" change to the hardware, it's a bit more low-level than that.

I decided that having the radio on after the ignition had gone off is a *much* more likely scenario than wanting to turn the radio on when you don't have the key to the car. To get it to wakeup you just have to put the key in, turn it for a second, then remove it (you don't have to wait until it's playing music) - the empeg will boot and then go into standby, from where you can wake it as usual.

Hugo
ps: Why do you keep replying to your original post, as opposed to following the thread? Makes it quite hard to read...

My 2000 Tahoe is nice in that you can remove the keys from the ignition, but it doesn't kill power until you open a door.

yeah, the VW is similllar in the that the radio stays on until you remove the key from the ignition (even after the car is off) however, what I was looking for was being able to turn the unit on without having to use the key.