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Griffin Powermate (Update OCT 14, 08)

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whammoed:

I wouldn't bother with the cable.  I put a different cable on mine and it made no difference.

DaOld Man:

Ok I just put a new cable on the powermate and it didnt seem to help any at all.
Whammoed was correct.

I thought I was on to something by disabling the "pulse during sleep" option in the software.
After I did that it came up just fine every time I tried it. So I thought I would test this by re-enabling the pulse on sleep option.
It has booted just fine on last three attempts, so I just dont know.

Anyway, for my juke, I have studied the benefits of using a regular audio pot instead of the powermate.

Advantages of a PM over a pot to control volume:
I like the way the powermate looks, but I did find a very similar knob on ebay for a pot.
I like the "push to mute" function of the powermate. I cant do this with a regular pot.

Advantages of a pot over the PM:
Frees up a USB port.
Works first time and every time.
I can install a pot with a switch that will turn the power on and off, just like the old time radios (this would be very neat.)
Uses no computer resources at all (no software loads, etc.)

Disadvantages of using the PM:
Hit or miss on the power up. (This is a big issue for me).
Cannot turn power to the juke on and off. (However you can configure the software to shut the PC down with the PM, but I havent tried it.)
Very expensive compared to a pot.

Disadvantages of the pot:
Cannot mute sound by pressing on knob.
May not look as good as the PM (But that depends on the type of knob you use.)




padstack:

Actually, you can get a pot with a push on/off mechanism built in.  Not sure of cost, etc, but you could always map that "button" to mute.  I've seen them before, but hadn't had to look for one in a while.

padstack:

http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/89365.pdf

here's one example.  I'm sure you can find something more local.  I think something like this might work, but you'd probably want an audio taper.

DaOld Man:

Thanks padstack! Thats a very interesting approach.

It would be really really nice if I could find a stereo audio pot with a on/off switch AND a push switch for muting. I think that turning the knob fully CCW and hearing the click that turns off the jukebox would be really neat.
You know, with all the brains we have on this board, I bet we can come up with something that would kick the holy snot out of the PM.

I will see what I can find.

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