I finally got my Sony Ericsson HCB-30 Bluetooth Car Kit installed yesterday, and it's working great... with the exception of the phone mute.

I've setup the option in emplode for the external mute to pause the player when it input is +12 Volts. Doesn't work. Phone rings, i make a call... either way, no pause. So i tried setting it to pause on 0 volts... this time the phone icon is up on the screen all the time, and when someone calls, nothing... it keeps playing and the phone stays there. I know the line is being detected since the phone appears when the mute line sees 0 volts.

Is there an outstanding but here or am i doing something wrong? Has anyone else seen this issue or NOT seen this issue and has their phone mute working fine?

I'm running 2.0final and the latest hijack.

EDIT: Now i'm wondering if Scott wired up the phone mute to a constant... hrm...

Sorry I can't help, but please post a review and some pics when this is working. This device looks excellent.

You can try a hijack mapping for mute/unmute. I'm pretty sure it's in the hijack faq, which you should be pretty familiar with. However, if you're not getting any changes with the stock functions, you've probably got something hooked up wrong. I'll try and check if the mute/unmute shows up on the button codes display when I drive home.

With my parrot, the phone mute had a cool little thing where you picked which port of the ISO harness you wanted the mute wire to go in.

I'm also looking forward to a full review once you get it worked out.

Matthew

Is the issue that the sound doesn't mute, or that the player doesn't pause?

I *think* 2.0 mutes output automatically when the mute line is thrown and the mute icon appears, though I can't exactly tell without tearing things apart: the Parrot CK3000 has the speaker outs run through it, so it both mutes the headunit/empeg and also shunts the speaker outs itself while the call is in progess.

I *know* the player doesn't auto-pause, however, which seems to be an oversight.

I've tried some ir mapping of the mute using exmute_on and exmute_off, but still get some odd problems where it sends some extra key commands under some circumstances. Also, unfortunately, car shutdown seems to trigger a muting event...which starts up my player as well since I use the top button press to toggle pause/play. Grn.

What I'd *really* like to do is have the someday-released v3 player have a pause-during-mute option, instead of hoping the the play/pause toggle button-press works via hijack/extmute.

If that's not possible, can the player expose it's play/pause status to the outside world (or add explicit play/pause keypresses to the player) so hijack can take up the slack?

And while I'm wishing, I'm still waiting for that pony...

-brendan

As long as you aren't using to AUX input, you could change your hijack config to switch to aux. Mine works 90% of the time, and if I got the other discrete code working (i know either player or aux uses a discrete, and my other uses the toggle) it'd probably work even better. The only time mine gets confused is when I turn the car off when a call is in progress, which is a stupid thing to do anyways, as you'll drop your call.

Matthew

I *know* the player doesn't auto-pause, however, which seems to be an oversight.

Are you sure? ISTR that the Player Configuration dialog in emplode lists this as one of the options. Are you saying that it's broken? Or is it missing?

I am *such* a dummy. It didn't even occur to me that the left box was a drop down.

-brendan

Hrm. I was hoping to use hijack as a last resort since it seems like a dodgy solution. So i'm not sure if anyone really answered this... does the phone mute/pause actually work for anyone? I guess Brendan is saying it is working for him.

It looks like it's gettinga constant supply since the icon is either always on or always off... but the player is never muted or paused... that's what's confusing me. I guess i'll have to play with hijack first and if that doesn't work i'll take 'er all apart and check out the wiring. Thanks fellas!

oh, and i'll do a review once i get the mute working. =]

I'll set up my backup to mute on the phone and haul it down the garage if you want me to check what the player software is doing. Shouldn't take more than ten minutes...

Matthew

Yes, after changing "Mute" to "Pause" and removing my extmute_on/off settings, the empeg is working as expected. Actually ran back up to the apartment to grab my phone before driving to the gym so that I could test it out sooner vs. later.

I still can't believe I didn't realize the left box was a drop down!

The Parrot CK3000 is ground-on-mute, so the right drop down is set to 0 volts.

[And the Parrot CK3000 mute line is tied to both the empeg and the headunit in parallel, so it also mutes the output of the headunit as well. Now to figure out if there's some undocumented setting to get the *headunit* to pause CDs on mute, instead of just muting...]

From what you're saying about the telephone icon appearing *always* I'd say the empeg's mute sense line is tied directly to ground and not the speakerphone's mute signal *or* the speakerphone's mute assert line is broken...

-brendan

Loren - If I recall correctly you need to install a resistor inline with the phone mute connection. This was an issue hashed out a while back (couple years) so you might just try to searches and see what you can find. I had phone mute working in my PT Cruiser and I do remember so sort of resistor that I had to install.

Rob

Out of curiousity for my setup, I did the search:

http://empeg.comms.net/php/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=empeg_general&Number=25590&page=&view=&sb=&o=

Mine works, so mine probably switches between 0V and 12V (well, vice versa).

-brendan

Rob! Well well look who's back on the boards. You gonna do the install or what? =]

as for the resistor... thanks for the link, i'm reading up now.

Tony, this needs to be FAQed.

Tony, this needs to be FAQed.

What, specifically? A few different subjects have been discussed in this thread...

In reply to:

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Rob! Well well look who's back on the boards.

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Shhh!! Don't tell anyone you saw me.

In reply to:

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You gonna do the install or what? =]

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You going to come down to San Jose?

Sorry, still haven't had time to rip apart the dash and do this yet... but Tony... here's the specific part that needs to be faq'd from Rob V.:

"If your hands free kit switches between 0V and 12V then it's easy to get working - just configure the player from emplode to know which state is active mute. If the kit switches between 0V and open circuit, you need to add a 10K resistor between the mute line and 12V, then configure the player to mute on 0V."

i'm still not exactly clear where this goes though... should i just tap into the 12v line to the player and the phone mute line and use the resistor to bridge them?

     ===|============12V==========|-----------

        | <-10K resistor          |  EMPEG

     ===|===========mute line=====|-----------

I don't understand, electronically, what the difference is between 0v and open circuit. I thought those were the same thing.

Oh, and it occurs to me that if you really wanted, you could do this internally to the empeg instead of ripping open your dash. Kind of depends on which of the two things seems like the bigger job to you.

I don't understand, electronically, what the difference is between 0v and open circuit. I thought those were the same thing.

0V means connected to ground; open-circuit means not connected to anything. An input that's open-circuit doesn't necessarily read 0V, especially in the presence of electrical noise.

So some cars switch that input between (connected to +12V) and (connected to ground); that's easy to distinguish. Others switch it between (connected to ground) and (not connected to anything), and in those cars connecting a biggish-value "pull-up" resistor between the input and 12V will result in the grounded case reading as 0V (because the ground connection is better than through the resistor) and the open-circuit case reading as 12V (because the connection through the resistor is better than nothing, so the voltage is "pulled up" to 12V).

Peter

Open-circuit means that the input is effectively disconnected - a high resistance, meaning no current flows, and the input can 'float' to whatever voltage it likes.

Zero volts means that the input is connected directly to the 0 supply line with a low resistance, meaning that current will flow if necessary to keep it at 0V.

The relevance to the phone mute input is that if it's open-circuit, it may wander up and down at whim (depending on such things as static build-up behind your dash), spuriously triggering the mute. If you put a 10K resistor between the input and ground, then it can never be open-circuit (when it's disconnected, the resistor pulls it back to 0V).

If your device presents 0V and open-circuit as its two states, you need a resistor to +12V so that open-circuit appears as +12V (if you had resistor to 0V, you wouldn't be able to detect the two states).

Does that help?

They are the same until you apply a test voltage to them.

Then 0v will start to sink current and your test voltage will be 0v. Open circuit won't sink any current and the reading will be your test voltage i.e. 12v.

The empeg probably detects falling or rising voltage like manchester coding rather than actual logic state so by adding a 'pull-up' resistor, you are applying a test voltage which makes your output either 12v or 0v which the empeg needs to detect the state change.

Oli.

ah ha. so could someone confirm my diagram? would that be where i want to put the resistor? If so i'll probably do as tony suggested and do it internally.

I wish i could find some specs on the Sony-Ericsson box i have so i'd know if it was throwing 0-12V or not without having to pull it all apart.

From what they've said, Loren, your diagram seems right.

I've added the FAQ entry. Hope it's right.

Thanks, everyone, for the explanations.

Seems strange for me that you needed this device, it works for me with a Ericsson handsfree (not bluetooth) to an T610.

Maybe they changed something...

The only issue I have is with the pause/mute function when listening to the tuner. I would like the player to pause when on the phone but the tuner should mute(but doesnt)....

/Fredrik

I'm still not positive i need it. I have yet to rip the dash apart and use a multimeter to see if it's throwing the switch or not... but i did check the wiring when i was installing my gauges, and it's definitely wired correctly. I'm gonna try and fix it this weekend.

K, well, i spent about 3 hours troubleshooting this today, and it still isn't working. I pulled the sled out of the dash, got a 10K resistor and jimmy rigged it in the iso plug between the ign. sense and the mute wire connectors, just to see if it would work. It seemed to work but to be inverted... it would mute when a call ended and unmute when one began. So i switched the setting on the empeg in emplode to mute on 0V instead of 12V and went and tried again. Nope. It just started acting completely random. Sometimes it would mute and sometimes it wouldn't and never when it was supposed to.

I've tried everything i can think of. Anyone have anymore ideas?

Use a voltmeter to determine exactly what is happening electrically. The software can be made to follow that, once we know exactly what it happening.

Cheers

You did have the ignition on when testing the 2nd time? It doesn't make much sense for it to have behaved perfectly (even if inverted) the first time and completely random the second time.

I was metering 0 to -.01V on the mute line against ground no matter what. So i figured it was just going from 0V to an open circuit. And yes i had the ignition on or else the wireless phone kit wouldn't work at all =].

I tried for a good 30 minutes to get a repeatable behavior but just when i thought i did it would do something different. I know the right wires are connected, i've checked that 5 times. I know the phone works, and i know that at times the empeg does see the mute action because it will pause, just not reliably and not when it's supposed to. Sometimes the empeg would start up with the phone icon on, and the music playing. Then i'd make a call, and the phone icon would disappear, but the music wouldn't pause. Then when i'd hang up, it would pause. Then i'd shut the car off, pull the empeg, reinsert, turn ignition, and the empeg wouldn't have the phone icon up or react at all to a phone call.

Two things i can think of that i need to rule out... the mute connection on the sled harness might be dodgey, and the resistor itself. I didn't think to check it's value with a MM... so it may have been faulty though that's probably unlikely. It's now sitting on the side of the street somewhere as a lead broke as i was removing it, so I'll have to get another anyway.

...And to add to the whackedy behavior. . . On the way to work just now the empeg randomly paused and the phone icon came on. No call, nothing, just paused from the phone mute, and it's set to mute on 12V. This is WITHOUT the resistor in place. So something is screwy. It's had that setting for months and never done that before.

loren,

A longshot: you don't have any hijack button code remappings/translations that might be coming into play, do you?

I made a mistake early on trying to add translations to pause and play based on mute line, before being educated/FAQ'd on the Emplode feature for 0V/12V, and saw similar non-deterministic behavior.

Another long-shot: are you feeding the mute line to just the empeg or to multiple devices? I've got two devices I mute from my speakerphone and had to add some protective diodes to prevent odd mute line behavior as things got warmer behind the dash.

-brendan

Oh and finally: have you tried metering the mute line against the 12V line? (I think it's safe to do this, meters are high impedance, right?)

-brendan

PS - I've had Lucero on my empeg constantly the past few days. My sister is thinking of trying to guilt them into swinging by the DC area, not sure tour planning works that way, though.

Nope, no hijack remaps, and the mute wire goes only to the empeg. I did meter the 12V against mute, but don't remember what it was saying... that would give me the voltage drop across the resistor. I seem to recall it reading 0V, but i'm not sure.

The Lucero show sunday night was as amazing as saturday. If you can see them live... you've gotta go. SO good. I'm having withdrawel from those two shows... i need another!

How about attempting something like wiring up a relay controlled by the mute line and connect the empeg to the output of the relay? If it's some sort of isolation issue, that might work around it.

-brendan

Alright, now i know something is screwy. Driving to work this morning i turned on my driving lights and the damn empeg paused. Off, unpaused. I think the wires on the back of the sled connector are coming loose and making contact... since the dimmer is right next to the mute wire on the sled connector. Tomorrow it all comes out ... again.

If checking all the lines doesn't work, I still recommend the relay:

The symptom you list is the exact same one I have. I'm still planning to isolate my mute line (my parrot is feeding both my head unit and empeg, currently in parallel).

As the car warms up (on trips > 1-2 hours), some sort of low level current or noise charge builds up, and I get pauses when more current is being pulled from the car's system (depressing voltage) such as: opening/closing windows, turning on compressor, hitting brakes, etc. all activate the mute until I stop pulling that current.

Over time (next hour), it just gets stuck permanatly on mute until I pull the empeg...then the headunit unmutes, and I can still use radio/CDs.

I've got the additions to my harness all put together, but I haven't bothered pulling it all out in the months since I put it together.

Seriously though: isolate the empeg's mute line with a relay, I bet it'd work...

-brendan

Well, if the Sony unit does indeed go from 0V to open circuit, i couldn't trip a relay with it could i? I still need to confirm if it does or not.

To operate a relay with a signal that switches between open circuit and 0V, you need to give it a (semi)permanent (on whenever you want to be able to use the mute functionality - for instance the ignition signal) +12V signal on one end of the coil and attach the kit at the other end of the coil. When the phone kit goes 0V the relay turns on, with the kit open circuit the relay is off.

With a SPDT (single pole double throw) relay you can then attach the common terminal (30 for a Bosch type relay) to the empeg mute input and put steady +12V and 0V signals on the switching terminals (87 and 87a) as required.

/Michael

Ah ha. Thanks for the explanation. When i return from the desert in a couple of weeks i'll do more delving.