Hey, did you guys ever consider lighted buttons? You can get surface mount buttons with LED's built right into them. Then you just need translucent plastic buttons of any color instead of the grey ones now. I would think you could pump another color plastic into the same molding tool to get the other colored buttons. As for the knob, it seems like you could do a lighted ring-around-the-knob like everybody else to start with.

It's not too big of a deal but after driving at night, I noticed I really had to feel around for the buttons even though I know were they are. Lighting just makes it easier to use.

Alex Lear

This has been discussed elsewhere at some length. I forget the exact details of the conversation, but here's what I recall:

The buttons which are used on the Mk1 display board (and possibly the Mk2?) can actually be purchased with LEDs in them, and a little bit of circuitry hacking on the board will result in backlighted buttons. It isn't something that's easy, though, since the soldering points are very small. It's not something recommended for the average soldering-iron-jockey.

The Empeg folks actually tried this hack once, and for a short while, there was a photo of the resulting display board on the main Empeg site. The photo has since been taken down. But it would be cool to see it on the Geek site (hint hint).

As I understand it, the reason this isn't a standard feature on the Mk2 is that it was too costly, it was hard to source the LED-equipped buttons in quantity, as well as the extra work necessary to get plastics that looked good both backlit and unlit. I could be wrong about those reasons, though.

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Tony Fabris

The main reasons were:

- Couldn't buy buttons with white LEDs. This means we'd have to have 2 different hardware variations for different button/screen colours (ie, green LED won't show through red or blue panels, and so on).

- Not enough room for lighting the rotary control. This would also be a fairly fraught with danger experience, as we don't know a lot about light propogation in plastics for uniform lighting, etc. People dedicate their entire lives to this sort of thing...

I've never had a problem with the mk2 as the button shapes are so distinctive, it's easy to tell by feel which button is which.

Hugo

how about a new remote with backlit buttens it could be done like the keypad on a nokia 5110 witch only has 4 leds witch light up the hole keypad

andrew butler
sn 08000176 6G amber

I have no doubt that Nokia's case design and tooling budget for that one phone exceeded our entire projected profit for the car player this year!

Rob

well that shot that one down!

Murray 06000047
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OK OK no lighted buttons, or at least not until EMPEG LTD goes public and dumps a Nokia amount of money into the MK IX

But how about luminescent buttons?

There are a few home theatre remotes out there that use glow in the dark buttons. I realize that they would not glow for too long but it might just be enough.

John

18GB Green MK II

want to know what would kick some flipping arse? elcetro eluminecent Buttons (hell maybe even a logo) what is that u ask? well that is indiglo basicly. i kwno what some of u are going to say but that woudl cost alot of moeny.. well i jsut got a set of indiglo gauge faces for my car for 80 bucks from a retail place (well i got a good deal cause i know them) cost was somewhere around 75 i think.. that might solve some of the problems but most likely then not it would cause more :)

would be cool to have a speical edition empeg that had an indiglo backlit display at night and during the day it would be white with black letters (and at night it would take on a blue with black motiff) and maybe a brushed aluminum or fake carbon fiber face plate for that sporty look.. just some ideas and i honestly dont know how good it would look in real life but hey it SOUNDS cool.
(read i trust empegs staff in there decsions)



Im as confused as a baby in a topless bar...