I love the new cycling through the sound controls with the push of the rotary control but up here in the north where it takes a long time to get dark can we have so that after the sound controls i can get the dimmer control to tweak the display in hours of almost darkness

Could you connect the dim sense line to a switch on the dash?

Okay maybe you have got the wrong end of the stick here.

What i would like is so that i can access the dimmer easily as Dusk lasts about 2 hours here being so far north so there fore you have to drive around with your lights on when it isn't fully dark so my normal setting for the dimmer when it is dark is about 10% but at dusk i have it at about 80% so instead of going through the menus i would like just to cycle up to it.

I have the light sense connected so it does go onto the lights on setting when i turn on the head lights it would just be nice to be able to reach it quckly for tweaking.

And while i am at it i still want a awake up timer when it is in home mode for when i am on the ship with it. I don't need it in the car but in the home so hopefully there is no complicated power issues.
Please

as Dusk lasts about 2 hours here being so far north so there fore you have to drive around with your lights on when it isn't fully dark

Another solution compaired to having easier dimmer settings would be to erect a giant mountain range to the west of you, thus making the sun set earlier and higher in the sky. This would elliminate your need for changing the dimmer

I live near the foot of Pikes Peak, and I didn't realise the benefits of this particular issue until a drive in L.A. around sunset while heading west. I'm also not someone who wakes up early enough to deal with it when it's rising, so it all works out. The fun thing is that due to the fact that the sun appears to set in different places over the year, we get several more minuets of sunlight in the summer time, due to the sun setting over some of the lower parts of the mountain range, and not near the peak of Pikes Peak in the winter time.

The other option may be to wire the dimmer line on the headlight wire. Then only when it is dark enough for you to need headlights, the dimmer activates

What would be really cool (but totally OTT) would be either a Phototransistor or LDR and A/D converter and RS232 out into the RS232-in on the player and some software to alter the dimmer setting according to the ambient lighting conditions. I'm sure someone here could come up with a design for one .

I have the light sense connected so it does go onto the lights on setting when i turn on the head lights it would just be nice to be able to reach it quckly for tweaking.

The problem is that he turns his headlights on before sunset, thus he wanted an easier way to get to the dimmer settings.

Another way that could work is a time based dimmer program. I'm sure something like this could be hacked in from the kernel or userland, and set up to set the dimmer at 80% at 6:00, then %50 or whatever at 7:00 pm. If someone was really creative, they could allow a list of sunrise/sunset times to be entered, and base it off that

If only I could program at the level needed to do this...

I second that, it would be very cool for the dimmer to be controled by the time. Since I like to turn my headlights on in the daytime, the auto dim function does not work for me.

I just want a nice simple extra button press to let me get at the dimmer Please

A timed auto dim would be great but it would need to be tweakable as in summer it gets dark about 11pm and in winter it gets dark about 5pm and if there is any empegs residing further north i am sure they agree

That's why I came up with the ambient lighting level controlling the brightness of the display idea.

and if there is any empegs residing further north i am sure they agree

Most definately!

I'm still thinking about how to wire my dimming line. As it comes in my VW Polo (see http://www.tempsch.org for install prOn) the line appears to be connected to the potentiometer that controls the instrument cluster lighting level. It varies between apprx. 2 to 12V, higher if brighter. That wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that this line always is active as the dipped beams are automatically turned on with the ignition (by law we have to have dipped beams on even in full sunlight) though with reduced power.

The main light switch has 3 positions, Auto, Off and On. In auto the dipped beams come on as described above, and you can't turn on full beam - only flash them. In Off, only parking lights are on. In On you get full power dipped beams and the ability to turn on full beam...

As it gets darker I turn the switch to On - and this is when I'd like the empeg to dim, no time else. I figure my best bet is to find a pin in the switch that does what I need and rewire the dimming line to that...
If anyone has any other idea, please let's hear it.

/Michael

I second that too! That's exactly the reason why I always have dim at maximum: I often go withj headlights on during the day, having the dim depend on the headlights is totally useless for me.

How about a kernel mod like mlord's menus that has a Dimmer selection that you can change with the knob/vol+- buttons? Mcomb, mlord, is this doable?

Mcomb, mlord, is this doable?

I am not sure how I got included in this question since I don't really speak C well enough to do anything more than compile other peoples patches, but... there is a function called display_sendcontrol in empeg_display.c that appears to be intended to set the display brightness (among other things). I assume it would be pretty simple to call this function from one of mlord's menus to adjust the brightness.

Personally I don't see it as being worth the trouble though. It would only save a button press or two from doing it through the empeg settings menu. If someone is going to go to the trouble of coding this why not do it right and calculate sunset time and duration based on date and longitude/latitude and then fade the display from a max setting to a min setting during that time?

-Mike

Firstly, it would allow for dimmer control in situations where we don't have it now. ie, Mark 1 players and Mk2's in the home. Do we really NEED dimmer control at home? Probably not.
Either way, user control of that dimmer setting would probably get done faster and more to the users' liking if we don't have to wait for the Empeg team to do it.
Maybe there could be a text file in /empeg/var or something with various times-of-day and their respective dimmer setting. This file could even be modified depending on the date or something. I'm just trying to justify this wish, but it would probably never be REALLY needed - just another cool user hack.

Edit: The lack of dimmer in the Mk1 is a hardware limitation, isn't it?.....if so, nevermind about the Mk1.