[Empeg-general] Re: Mark 2 faceplate restricts viewing angle

[Rob Voisey]

We did rather better than put a unit on a desk (which has little correlation with a real car).  We have comprehensive engineering diagrams from SolidWorks which show the exact viewing range to within a fraction of a degree, and those figures were considered adequate for the vast majority of vehicles.

Please don't make out that we didn't spend any time on this (as project manager for the new fascia I lost a LOT of sleep over just this issue) and please don't suggest that the people that worked on it aren't even engineers.  I might be a mere electronics and computing graduate, but the people that designed and manufactured the plastic are top professionals in their field and put in a great deal of research.

I'm not sure what kind of "helpful" response you're expecting.  I'm not saying that this client isn't telling the truth, I am saying that this problem occurs only in a fraction of vehicles.  Those are vehicles in which the manufacturer has seen fit to position the stereo low down and not tilt the bay upwards.  What can we do about this?  With the panel, nothing - we already redesigned the CAD to improve the viewing angle as far as the designer was able to go without scrapping the whole style.  Will we scrap a $40,000 tool and design project?  No, because this is far from a universal problem and it makes no commercial sense for us to do so.  Will we work around in software?  Maybe, I don't manage the software development and I have no idea what would be involved in that.

Rob