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..