I would lurve to do it but I neither have the skills or the equipment. Ditto for anyone I know

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Steve - 18GB Mk II Sssmokey

I'm not quite sure how the rotary LED fits into the picture though. That one seems a bit 'hacky'.

Yeah, there aren't any tracks for the rotary LED, Brian hacked that one himself. I hope that Brian can provide details of how he went about that particular part.

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Tony Fabris

The resistor pack is about 3 x 1.5 mm and has 8 solder points. Adding that also involves bending up the display board to get access to the traces. And to put in the leds you have to first unsolder the filled in holes. I would not recomend anyone doing this who hasn't hand soldered surface mount components before.

Brian

-See my empeg here-

The rotary knob light is a complete hack. The holes by the rotary knob that look like they are for an led are either turned on the same or exactly the same traces as the standby led. To hook up the knob led I ran some fine wire from the traces by the buttons along with an inline resistor and glued the led in place.

Brian

-See my empeg here-

Steve, I am making buttons but the molding process will take another week or two. Then I can make buttons in about a day. I plan on making a bunch of colors and shades. I'm also molding the faceplate for fun.

Alex Lear

COOL !!!!

How much do you plan to charge for the buttons?

Are you also molding a translucent knob? Will the knob be modeled after the new-style knob (fixed so it doesn't slip on the shaft)?

/me drools...

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Tony Fabris

if it is like the new style knob then it won't work on the old mk2 right ?

32Gig MK2 In 2001 VW Golf TDI

if it is like the new style knob then it won't work on the old mk2 right ?

They made a batch of "fixed" knobs that would go onto the original Mk2 round shaft. It simply grips the shaft better.

And by the way, all the knob/shaft comments have already been made, so just forget about what you were thinking of saying.

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Tony Fabris

what I was trying to say is if alear made a knob to fit the new mk2 it wouldn't work on the old one because the shafts on the pots are different

32Gig MK2 In 2001 VW Golf TDI

what I was trying to say is if alear made a knob to fit the new mk2 it wouldn't work on the old one because the shafts on the pots are different

Right. I was afraid he might be going on an even older knob, the first version, where the shaft was round instead of keyed, but the "vanes" inside the knob were weaker and prone to slippage.

Ideally, he'd mold two kinds of knobs, the fixed-second-revision-mk2-knob, as well as the keyed-riocar-knob.

So what's your knob like, Alear?

(Get your mind out of the gutter, people! )

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Tony Fabris

I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about my molded buttons. These are not going to be that precise. It is tough to do a 360degree box mold which is what is required to get the inside of the knob and buttons. An accurate shape of the button can be molded then I have to go back and drill out the hole on the back. A little dab of glue is required to keep the buttons on the switches. My buttons will probably be free or maybe a buck if I get thousands of requests( I doubt it).

Here is exactly what I am using:
Castin' Craft Mold Builder Liquid latex rubber (for mold)
Castin' Craft Clear liquid plastic casting resin and catalyst (for actual buttons)
Any coloring for colors ( I actually bought the coloring from the same company.

You can do it yourself but it takes a while and there is a learning curve to making the molds.

Alex Lear

Ah, cool. I see.

I guess it doesn't matter if the back side is perfect, as long as the front looks OK, the LEDs fit, and the buttons stay in place.

I did do a little research on how this sort of thing is done, and I see that the process is a little messy and not a very exact science.

As far as colors go, do you think you could make the knobs translucent gray? That way they would look similar to the existing ones, then I could put green LEDs behind them and they would match my car (well, kinda close anyway).

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Tony Fabris

Yep, gray will probably be first up. I was planning on some translucent gray ones because then they will hopefully look somewhat normal in daytime.

Alex Lear

Wow what an interesting thread did I skip!
Well, just wanted to say that I'll buy those translucent buttons and knob, if you sell them! That's a way to good idea... :)

Taym
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MK II BLUE/RED 12GB #923

I finished my first set of buttons. I decided to do green because I had the coloring. I don't have LED's in my buttons so I just put it up to my monitor for the picture. You can see with back lights off, the buttons look almost black. And when on, green. The buttons came out good but I haven't drilled the holes in the back yet to mount on the actual switches.

Alex Lear

Wow! That's awesome; count me in for a set of buttons.

Wow, looks great!!! Where do I send the money for a set of Green ones?

-Doug
Mk2-12G Blue (Now A/R Green)

Just curious - have those people who are after translucent buttons converted their empegs for backlighting or is it just for something different?

___________________________

Steve - 18GB Mk II Sssmokey

Fantastic!
Now, how hard would it be to produce some kit that allows anybody with no soldering expertise to turn his/her empeg into a botton-lit empeg?

Taym
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MK II BLUE/RED 12GB #923

Just so everyone can see it, here is Marvin with his illuminated buttons.

This mod doesn't involve the rotary knob at all, and the blue leds used are too bright, so when driving they can be a little dazzling.

Toby.

And without the front panel on

The "no soldering expertise" will be a hard one to overcome. Someone would have to be willing to do the work for you, and you'd have to be willing to put the expensive, fragile display board into their care...

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Tony Fabris

Just curious - have those people who are after translucent buttons converted their empegs for backlighting or is it just for something different?

I can't speak for anyone else, but here's my feeling: If I can get a set of decent-looking translucent buttons, I will do the backlighting hack. Without the translucent buttons, there's no point. I'm not interested in the hole-drilling method-- for me, it's all or nothing.

So as soon as the buttons are available, then I will begin work on the hack. Where do I sign up for the queue?

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Tony Fabris

WOW.

Where do I send the check, and how much?

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Tony Fabris

Cool pictures! Got me itching for one of my own!

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Tony Fabris

cool stuff!

bye........

CrazyMelki

I am going to experiment with a better mold, different materials, a full front back mold (?), opaque back layer to disperse the light better.

Also on a differenet note, there isn't a major current limit on the LED circuit is there? I have a PCB prototyper so I was going to create a printed circuit board in a ring shape with surface mount LED's around the ring for the knob area. This would require about and extra 100mA for 8 LED's. Shouldn't be a problem but I wasn't sure if it was being driven by a uP/CPU ouput pin or something silly like that.

Alex Lear

Holy crap man... Sign me up as well... especially if you get a board for a ring around the rotary knob. I can't wait to see blue!! Nice work!


|| loren.cox ||

I'm interested in buying some blue and/or gray buttons and knobs. I don't know what is driving the LEDs but I do know what ever it is drives all four so there should be a pretty good limit on it.

Brian

-See my empeg here-

In reply to:

---

Toby will be very disappointed that his is no longer the only empeg in the world with illuminated buttons!

---

I am surprised that no empeg employees have made a similar mod, or have a prototype with illuminated buttons. Or were you just referring to end users. I can imagine lots of cool variants in Hugos NSX . Especially since the hardware was so close to having this feature. Are there any other partially completed features lurking on the PCB (like a 1/2 completed USB master port or digital audio outputs).

Please dont contrive any criticism about 'missing' features from this post, I am completely happy with my player as is. I am just excited (as is everyone else) that the buttons can be 'upgraded'. This is so cool!!

Great Job Alex, I would never have though of this...


-Doug
Mk2-12G Blue (Now A/R Green)