My empeg drives (Fujitsu, of course) sometimes don't start up in the morning when the player has been off and in my car overnight. Can I make the standby time in emplode ridiculously high and leave it in standby in my car all night? Is this ok for the player? I was bringing it in everynight and leaving it in standby mode with the AC, but I just think it is easier to leave it in the car when I can if possible.

it may drain your battery but i could be wrong

Well, car batteries are often about 40AH @ 12 volts, or 480 watt-hours. (Check yours!) According to the Empeg user guide, it uses 2.75 Watts in standby, and laptop drives spinning but idle usually use 1-2 watts depending on model and idle configuration. So for two drives, total 4.75-6.75 watts. Assuming no other drain from your car, about 3-4 days of continuous standby before your battery is fully discharged.

Might sound okay, but is your commute long enough to fully charge the battery after that kind of drain every night?

Also, what's the deal with keeping the drives spun up when it's in standby? I thought standby was supposed to spin down the drives?

Alex

The drives do spin down in standby (not necessarily immediately - but within a couple of minutes).

Rob

For some reason, mine does not EVER go into standby mode. I know the connections are correct, I triple checked. Could it be a problem with the 2000 Mustang? Or am I just missing something?

If your player does not go into standby mode, there might be something wrong with the way it is wired. There are FAQ entries on this, such as this one right here.

[edit: As stated in that FAQ entry, it could also be the negative spike bug or a blown fuse. I know you said you triple-checked the wiring, but if it doesn't go into standby, there is still something wrong. You may have checked the wiring, but how sure are you that the wires are even connected to the right things in the first place?]

I can confirm this as my car is wired such that the 12v is always on so the player never switches off but stay's in standby mode. This is how it is wired from the factory as I just swapped the standard connectors from the original factory fit hifi to the Empeg.
Yesterday I went to use the car for the first time in a week and the battery was as dead as a dodo.

As a question does the 'Power Off' item on the menu actually switch the Empeg off or does it leave it in standby mode?

Ray

The power off menu item does not actually power the player off. It puts it into standby mode.

i purposely wired both the ignition wire and the constant power wire together so that the empeg will never go OFF when i remove the key/turn it to off position, for the reason that i frequently have the car "in demo mode" heh, which basically means i need to be able to turn off the car and walk away with the keys in hand while the stereo plays happily. at night the empeg stays in the car in the garage and is in standby all the time, the LED pulses away happily. i do use the car almost every day but on occasion i have left it 2 days, and it still seems to start fine, voltmeter says the charge still remains about the same.

i USED to have it wired as recommended, and i set the timeout to a ridiculously long time hoping that it would be the equivalent of having it on all the time... but i was entering amounts like 384,000 seconds for timeout and it only worked intermittantly... starting the car at the wrong time would seem to override this setting and kill the unit prematurely, strange things luike that - in the end i just went and re-wired it.

just my $0.02 anyway as i havent had a problem in this area at all, in this method of use.

i purposely wired both the ignition wire and the constant power wire together so that the empeg will never go OFF when i remove the key/turn it to off position, for the reason that i frequently have the car "in demo mode" heh, which basically means i need to be able to turn off the car and walk away with the keys in hand while the stereo plays happily.

It is not necessary to wire the player incorrectly to do that.

When the player is wired correctly, after you remove the keys from the ignition, you can still wake the player from standby mode by pressing any button, and then it will play indefinitely. The details of how this works can be found here. This even works for very short values of the standby timer. I have mine set to 5 seconds, and I have no trouble allowing the player to play indefinitely after taking the keys out.