A good friend of mine since high school, and fellow empeg owner, is building his own empeg/RioCar docks. He is a NVH engineer for one of the big 3 auto companies and his roommate is a plastics engineer (not sure of his real title). After seeing my Mark Lord docking station, he fell in love with it, but it was a bit out of his price range and Mark had stopped producing them. So, he did what any self sufficient busy body would do and started designing his own. In short, after borrowing one of my docking stations to get some measurements, he told me about his plan: him and his roommate are making a mold for hard-plastic docking stations.

The concept is really cool. You can get practicaly ANY color you want and the cost will be fair. He is still figuring out how many he can make and what the demand will be, but he plans to be able to sell these things for under $100. You can even get a CLEAR docking station that you can rig to glow! He was telling me too that if a colored dock gets scratched, it will be the same color underneigth, so scratches will be hard to see. I didn't know he was borrowing my docking station to take measurements, but I'm guessing because of that they will be the same general size and shape.

He wanted me to post here to see what the interest would be and to see if any of you had any feature requests or suggestions. He's had an empeg for over 2 years now, but has always had me to come to with questions, so he never became part of the empeg community. He could be making his first run in a week or so (pics of the mold by a week from now) but it's not too late to offer input.

Anyone have any suggestions?
Rack mount kit?
More ventilation?
More fans?
Power switch?

Here are some of his random ideas: Most docks will be a black/dark grey to match the empeg facia but custom colors, even clear will be available. PayPal or direct credit card payment will be possible via a web site. Shipping will originate from the USA but he will ship international if needed.

I havn't seen the mold yet, so I can really offer more until then..

Yes!
Count me in.
This sounds very cool, especially the clear docks or ability to rig some type of lighting set up were once you slide in the player, lights come on.
oh, oh, wait!
I got it!
Have a glowing Rio or empeg logo on the top of the dock light up once player is inserted.

I can't wait to see some pics.

I would most likely be up for one as well - the clear/lighted sounds tempting...

/Michael

Sounds cool, I'm in.

More ventilation?

Only if the fan(s) are very quiet. Dunno how to accomplish this?

Power switch?

To me, that's a critical component of a docking station.

Anyone have any suggestions?

One of my needs for a docking station is true AC-adapter functionality, which is why I did the glue-in-plug trick on my docking stations. Mark's loopback trick on the docking connector is a nice idea, but I still want to be able to do an upgrade or a kernel flash without jumping through hoops.

I think if I did my docking stations over again, I'd try to figure out a way to make them very small like Mark's, but at the same time I'd like to figure out how to make them very heavy so that they stay put on the desk even better than the ones I've got. I suppose I'd have to make them out of lead to do that.

My only request is that he respect my IP, and come up with an original design, not simply a change in materials.

-ml

One of my needs for a docking station is true AC-adapter functionality

I second this, it's frustrating to have to unplug everything from the docking station and plug it up to the back of the empeg to flash the kernel or apply an upgrade. It's my only gripe with my MLord dock (which by the way, is fantastic).

Use ethernet for upgrades instead? WAaaaayyyy faster!

Mac * Linux * Windows

Touche'.

ISTR that someone compiled a win32 version of the ethernet upgrader...just need to find it.

Just click on the Hijack link up top, and then on Upgrader. The windows executable should be inside the upgrader.tgz file.

Cheers

I got an error message when I tried to run that upgrader and gave up.

Mark, that is a concern of mine as well. I know you took a lot of care to get the fit just right. I'll be the first to post pictures or the docks.

What about a dock that doubles as a carrying case? With a flip lid and handle? Reconnecting the wires everytime would get annoying i guess... just an idea i've had for a long time.

I'd like to have a front mounted power switch on mine.

<dream>
And maybe provision for DAC/Quality Headphone Out options with a volume control on the front.

Hey, how about a built in Valve Headphone Amp/Pre Amp with cut outs/clear plastic case! Wicked! Maybe a mod to this, that would be so cool!
</dream>

Cheers

Cris.

> I'd like to have a front mounted power switch on mine.

With a power-off dampening circuit for the RCA outs...

-brendan

> What about a dock that doubles as a carrying case? With a
> flip lid and handle? Reconnecting the wires everytime
> would get annoying i guess... just an idea i've had for a
> long time.

Suddenly, the image of a clear underwater/SCUBA case for the empeg came to mind...

-brendan

Using the Windows version of Mark's upgrader requires a working cygwin install and some other utilities like ncftpput. It's not going to just work. So it's not an automagic install, but anyone who likes working in a unix-like command line environment will probably want to install cygwin anyway. (I put the cygwin bin dir in my windows path, this way things like rsync, ls, ssh all run from a regular Win32 command line. I rarely use the full bash shell.)

It's also probably much better to do a real cygwin install anyway, because distributing =just= the cygwin dll is a violation of its licencse (GPL).

And as a matter of fact, my current cygwin install is only about 150 MB, and that includes a full set of devel tools, so it's possible to make it a reasonable sized install.

--Nathan

What about a dock that doubles as a carrying case?

Interesting idea, but then I'd need a dock for my dock.

Using the Windows version of Mark's upgrader requires a working cygwin install and some other utilities like ncftpput.

Ah, that must have been it. I recall the error message might have had "ncftpput" in it. I had a cygwin.dll that I use for findempeg but that was all.

Not interested in installing a full 150mb cygwin for just the one utility...

Isn't that called a car?

Heh, good point.

Something similar to mlords - but with a built in FM modulator to allow use in CD only hire cars

I'd take one at that price, seems too good to miss