Wish: Headlight warner

Here is a request for a feature that may belong to hijack or to the main software...

How about a warning-sound for when the engine is turned off, but the headlights forgotten?

(when ignition-sense==off and headlight-sense=on do Beep)

Marius (Escort Cab + Mark II)

Hi.

Why not play a user definable sound if that happens? Like "Turn of the light, idiot"

cu,
sven

Pah, my car already does this anyway -- if the ignition's off, but the lights are on, it emits a continuous tone when you open the driver's door.

My thoughts exactly. Maybe I'll take a quick gander sometime to see if it's easily doable in Hijack - but there's plenty of other stuff that has a higher priority, and my time is limited at the moment.

Maybe we could hook up the door-sensor to the phone-mute line, and achieve that :-)

Marius (Escort Cab + Mark II)

I would have to agree on this. If it's going to be a usable feature it would need to be triggered by opening the doors, as most people (I think) turn the car off before they turn their lights off.

My car dings when I leave the lights on, so it wouldn't be worth fishing for the door line to me.

Matthew

the player has no concept of on or off, does it? it's simply "state A" or "state B", as different cars use different types of signaling for the headlight sense. or am i missing something?

--dan.

Nope, you're not missing anything. The player doesn't know whether the lights are on or off.

Why can't it use the headlight sense?

Calvin

Why can't it use the headlight sense?


The player only knows that the line is high or low, and allows you to assign a different dimmer setting to each state, without ever interpreting what that state actually means. The stock kernel doesn't attempt to interpret it.

The button LED code in Hijack assumes that 12V means that the headlights are on, and 0V means that they are off. I'm confident that this will bite us at some point if the button LED hack becomes popular. At some point I'm looking to rework the button LED code anyway - and I'll probably add a Hijack option Dimmer_line_is_inverted or similar. Once that happens then doing stuff like "if (headlights && accessory_line_is_low) {beep}" becomes more feasible.

Why can't it use the headlight sense?

Argh, you're not listening!

Because the headlight sense doesn't know the difference between "off" and "on". It just knows "line is high" and "line is low" and adjusts the dimmer to two user-controlled presets accordingly. Different cars do it opposite of each other.

Okay, the above thing could be handled with an INI setting. But here is the other problem with using the empeg as your headlight-warner: Headlight warning is only useful if the key is out of the ignition. But if the key is pulled out of the ignition, then the empeg goes into sleep mode and the amplifier is turned off, hence no way for the empeg to make a warning sound.

But if the key is pulled out of the ignition, then the empeg goes into sleep mode and the amplifier is turned off, hence no way for the empeg to make a warning sound.


That wouldn't be too hard to deal with - we'd delay standby until both accessory and the 'normalised' headlight line were both low. And the feature would be off by default too so that it would be totally backwards compatible.

The biggest problem is the time taken to do this. Both Mark and I are working at the moment, and other stuff has a higher priority. (Such as fixing the button LEDs for everyone, extending the range of bass/treble controls, AC mode display dimming etc).

Actually, I'd really like to see beta13...I'd hate to work on stuff only to see it obsoleted.

Actually, I'd really like to see beta13...I'd hate to work on stuff only to see it obsoleted.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. The next beta will only be bug fixes. Internal Beta12 hasn't made your stuff break, I don't see any reason why the next one should.

Hey how come he has Internal beta 12? No fair!

Because the alpha team gets all internal betas.

Ah, didn't know genixia was also on the alpha team. Nevermind.

He isn't, that's why he's worried about the next beta breaking things.

He didn't say he had beta 12. I did.

I'm not. (Yet!!?????????????? beg???) So the news that internal beta12 hasn't broken any of my code is reassuring

Oh, I get it. YOU tested his stuff on the betas. I think I missed a pronoun somewhere. Move along, nothing to see here.

oops, that's what I get for reading this thread in "flat" mode. The replies are disconnected from their contexts. Oh well.

Calvin

Tony has a habit of accusing innocent people of having the beta. :-) I've been the victim of that as well. :-D *razz*

Calvin

A problem which could be solved by, gee, giving us these betas.

Most cars already do this if they were built after a certain date.

You may be able to retro fit a small electronics circuit to do the same for a whole lot less sodding around.

Two thyristors (i think) in line one being switched by the ignition and the second by the lights might work. I could do it in relays i understand relay. Thyrisitors my only experince of them is in diesel electric ships where we use them to control and power the main engines

I want to do it with the empeg because it is *cool*
:-)

Marius (Escort Cab + Mark II)

My MkIIa by default when I got it continued to play for 1 minute after I turned off the ignition and took the keys out, left the car and didn't turn off until I was a good distance from it. I have since set it to only 30 seconds, but it keeps playing after my car is shut of. Is there something wrong with my unit or is this a feature specific to the MkIIa?

Click here for one possible explanation, but the "one minute" thing sounds like it could be more complicated than that.

Sounds like something is miswired, causing the ignition-switched wire on the player to maintain voltage after the car is shut off. For instance, if you connected it to something other than the ignition-swiched wire on the car. An example would be if you connected the Orange wire from the sled to the Orange wire on the car just because they were the same color (assuming that the color codes meant something without actually checking what each wire did). On many aftermarket harness adapters, the Orange wire is actually the headlight sense wire, not the ignition switched wire.

Or it could have been the known Jiffies bug in Beta11. Have you installed a recent Hijack (which fixes the bug)?

The other day, when I turned off my car, the car unit kept playing for a good 20 seconds before it realized the power is out and it shut down. I wonder if this is related.

Calvin

Yeah, this bug seems to have several corrolaries, like how you sometimes have to hold the rewind button for 10 seconds before it responds to your press. I think they're the same bug. But I've never seen it go longer than that.

Bitt-warning. I suggest that manifestations would have been a better choice.

Oh no. Everybody run. It's the grammar police.

Hey, I could have been really mean and pointed out that you had spelled it wrong too.

Oops. Just did

my mk2a goes into standby when i turn off my car, but if i press the knob, it goes back on, even if i have the key out.is this by design?

yes, yes it is....

I had a chance to check out the wiring today and I think I have it figured out. I posted it under Technical here. Seemed more appropriate.

And mine NEVER goes into standby mode. Never has. No big deal, since it wouldn't do me a bit of good anyway. Cranking my car pulls enough voltage to shut it off even if it were already playing. BTW, wiring is all OK, I checked. And checked. And used a meter, and checked again.