Does anybody see a pattern here? It sure looks like most user have not experienced the problem; but those who have experienced the problem have experienced it multiple times.

This would certainly suggest a hardware problem, not software. (If it were software, then everybody would have had the problem) I think Rob Schofield might be on to something when he suggests that there may be internal problems with the switches themselves -- either some of the switches could be defective, or the installation process may have damaged some of them.

When some empegs experience the problem over and over; and most other empegs can't be induced to produce the problem at all, then there has to be some difference in the empegs themselves. Since the software is exactly the same, I guess that leaves only two other possible variables: (1) the hardware; and (2) its physical operation.

It's highly unlikely that all of the people experiencing the problem are doing something unusual when they press their buttons. After all, the number of different ways you can push in and release a button are pretty limited, and empeg people have been pursuing this avenue pretty well in any case.

So what's left?

I think it might be very advantageous for empeg to choose a person who has had frequent runaways, and trade him straight across a new Mark II (when they become available) in return for his immediate return to empeg of his malfunctioning Mark I. This person would be without his empeg for a few months, but getting a Mark II upgrade at no charge might be compensation enough. And empeg would be in a position to finally replicate in house a very vexing and potentially dangerous problem.

Any volunteers?

tanstaafl.



"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Good idea, Doug.

I had another (different) thought about the sticking buttons today.

If it is due to dirty switches and debounce problems, then there would be a very simple way to force a reproduction of it. On one of the in-house test units, solder a couple of variable resistors in place of the volume switches. Turn them up and down slowly and see if they cause the runanway condition. If so, then you need to look at switch glitching as a possible cause. If not, you could probably rule it out.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

Tanstaafl,

When I read the other posts on Rob's thread I thought that it was over 50% of people who posted had experienced the bug.

Your post made me think again about that, so I thought that I'd gather some stats on that thread.

I broke the results down into four categories : Experience with and without button usage, not experienced with and without buttons.

Here's what I got (at 7:33 GMT):

Experienced with button usage : 11
Experienced without button usage : 0
Not Experienced with button usage : 6
Not Experienced without button usage: 3

So that makes it 11 v's 9, or 55% of respondents.

(People who use antoher head unit or just the remote go into the 'Not Exp. without button usage' category).

Assuming that this is a representative sample of the empeg user base, then this is a prerty widespread issue...

Let the comments begin!

Cheers,

Paul.

Paul Haigh, 6GB, Blue
Reg: 4120 - Serial 00254

I don't see any need to wait that long and swap for a Mark 2 player - in any case that wouldn't prove anything, the Mk. 2 buttons are exactly the same, but the PIC software has been tweaked to work around the problem.

We have lots of Mark 1 spare parts. I'll choose someone that is experiencing significant problems with the bug and invite them to return their player (at our expense of course) for a display board swap. We'll test the new board thoroughly before it goes out.

If the client still experiences problems it must be something related to their specific usage patterns. If the problem goes away, then we have our answer and will look more closely at the known-defective board to determine a fix.

Any volunteers? I need someone who experiences the bug often, and preferably in Europe to minimise shipping delays.

Rob

Rob,

I'd be willing to help you out here. As I wrote (and just tried again), I can make the bug appear every two minutes or so, so it's quite eays to reproduce. And as my car is currently being repaired and repainted (which will need another two or three weeks), I don't need my empeg urgently at the moment. I'm in Germany.

Daniel

Daniel,

Send me an email (rob@empeg.com) and we'll set this up.

Rob