Ok, I think I have may have a grasp on why my Empeg is not working correctly in the car. There never has been any problems while installed at home.

The first symptom I noticed is that after 20 minutes of playing in the car the player would cut out. I researched and the FAQ as well as this BBS and installed the latest version of hijack. Ths seemed to fix this problem, though as a side note at the same time I replaced the battery in the car with a new Interstate Battery. Maybe this problem is semi-related to "Symptom Three" below and replacing the battery fixed this problem?

The second symptom I noticed is when the hard drive spins up the Empeg goes into standby for a few second then resumes. This problem rears its head especially when the lights or other accesories are on. This is easy to diagnose. Not enough power from the 35w alternator to run player.

The third symptom is that during highway driving, the Empeg freezes then it will not respond at all nor will it reboot. There always is a "No Hard Drive error. Contact Support" message after reboot. I tried removing the player from the cars DIN cage and using a 12V 1A cigarette lighter adapter on the back of the player to reboot the player. After reboot player runs fine in both modes, home and car. I thought this was a hard drive cable problem and subsequentialy replaced the cable with a new one from SB/Empeg. Replacing the cable did not repair this problem though. Then I figured that maybe the shock of the highway driving may be loosening the cable from the connectors. BUT, I should not be able to reboot the player with the "home" connector if the drives are not hooled up corectly. I opened player anyway and saw nothing awry.

Now my theory. I think maybe all of these problems are a symptom of a problem with the car power. The power does not seem to dip below 12v at all during the hard drive runup though on the digital ammeter. Also the Neo25II that uses the 12v cigarette lighter supply does not have any problems with the power supply, it runs at 5vdc 2a max. Maybe using 2-30gb hard drives is draining all of the power when both are runup to speed (2 drives at 5vdc = 10vdc???)? Possibly if I was running only one drive I would not have a power problem?

Is anyone else running dual hard drives having any problems with power consumption?



Sean in NC

Player specs: MK2A 60gb /2.0-b11 / hijack v264

Maybe using 2-30gb hard drives is draining all of the power when both are runup to speed

Unlikely.

The amount of power consumed by the empeg (even with two drives) is absolutely minuscule compared to many of the electrical systems in your car. For example, stepping on your brake pedal will cause the brake lights to use more power than the empeg ever would, and something like your windshield wipers or rear window defroster consumes power at least one and possibly even two orders of magnitude higher.

If your battery/alternator couldn't handle the tiny load of the empeg spinning up its disk drive(s), then the first time you turned on your headlights your car would probably stop dead in its tracks.

tanstaafl.

Most car alternators should be able to supply the necessary current to the player. The only time that the alternator output should be an issue is when you've got a lot of other aftermarket stuff plugged into it, such as very-high-wattage amps, neon lights, etc.

With that said: On my two-drive player, my display goes blank on hard drive spinup and I get the battery icon when it's in the car. But only if my engine is off or (sometimes) if I'm just starting the car. If my engine is running (and the alternator is doing its job), then I don't have the problem.

I wonder...

Is it possible to change the bootup procedure in the kernel to "stage" the hard drive spinups? Spin up disk 1 then disk 2? Any of the kernel hackers here reading this?

Interesting that you should ask. I was wondering whether spin-up current could be a factor with the dreaded "No HD found" message, and whether the Fujitsu drives draw more current during spin up than others, as most people see more problems with the Fuj drives. (The specs I found didn't support this theory, but we all know that specs get massaged).

I was also wondering if it might be ground related - the rubber mounting washers mean that all spin-up current has to return through the IDE cable. For 2 Fujitsu drives, that is 1.8A (assuming they spin up togther). I don't know what the resistance of the IDE cable is - but the drives are only spec'd for 5V +/-5%. And some people suggest that switching Master/Slave on the cable helps. I wonder if they spin up in order, and the difference in cable length is having an effect.
Lots of random musing, but no concrete theories.

i get a similar problems with 2 drives, but never while the car is running, i basically cant run the empeg with my acc on, the car has to be running. Ive never checked to see if it dose that with one drive, maybe i should investage further,

The low power issues happen whether the car is started or not. I even have 2 cars that are exactly identical, both 1972 Datsun 510 four doors, and the same happens in both. One of the Datsuns is even factory stock. I ran the Empeg for 4 hours yesterday with the car turned off and the only consistant problem was when the player would "turn off" then restart during hard drive access. Using accessories, turning on the lights etc, only causes the player to "turn off" then restart and it never causes the player to stop working.

It seems that the Empeg should be able to withstand these slight power fluctuations whether it is hard drive access or using an accesory in the car, correct? I mean I would expect power problems if I had the high beams on, was using the turn signals and brake lights.

Note, I am using only a smaller type of head unit in the car, no power amp and this problem is happenin whether the head unit is on or off.

Sean in NC

both 1972 Datsun 510 four doors

Say no more.

Try running the power to the player directly from the battery using a decent-gauge wire instead of trying to tap into the factory radio wiring. Make sure to put a weatherproof fuse very close to the battery as part of this wiring. That should solve your problems.

Ok, So this problem is fixed. There was a dry soldier joint on the IDE header and resoldering seemed to do the trick.

Thanks David...