[sudo-discuss] Tamale's USB pins fell out D:

[Anon195714]

Re. the wires were "very loosely attached":  Ouchie!, sorry to hear it.

This is a textbook case for why craft & trade skills are important: to
build stuff that's robust and reliable, not fragile and easily broken. 

These skills can't be learned from a textbook, they have to be learned
hands-on, by building stuff and seeing how it breaks and then fixing it
so it won't break the next time. 

What do to about the broken door-contraption:  Take the broken stuff
over to Al Lasher's Electronics on University Ave. in Berkeley and ask
them how to make the splices & connections to be strong.  They'll
happily tell you what's needed, teach you some useful information about
how to do it, and sell you a small handful of inexpensive parts to do
the job the right way.  Plastic electronics enclosures ("black boxes"),
multi-pin connectors, cable strain-reliefs, etc. etc., all belong on
every hacker's workbench.

Whoever built the contraption in the first place should do this since
they know where the wires are supposed to go, and will benefit most from
learning how to fix it so it's robust. 

Over time we'll also end up with a generic parts bin full of misc. bits
& bobs, from the obvious ones such as resistors & capacitors, wire
connectors and toggle switches etc., to the obscure odd bits that nobody
ever expects to need but save the day when building one thing or
another.   One good way to store those kinds of doodads is with one of
those "organizer" things that's basically a rectangular metal box full
of little clear plastic drawers with movable dividers. 

There used to be some excellent electronics stores in Oakland,
especially back in the day when the military bases were in operation. 
Those places are gone now, and the last remaining real electronics
store, staffed with people who know how to build stuff and who can make
recommendations, is Al Lasher's in Berkeley. 

If anyone in the Amateur (HAM) Radio scene still builds any of their
equipment from scratch, they could also come in and teach some of the
relevant skills.

-G. 


=====


On 13-03-21-Thu 11:32 PM, Yardena Cohen wrote:
> Tamale is our door controller, as you probably know. It controls the
> doorknob by a USB cable. The cable is spliced in two wires which were
> apparently VERY LOOSELY attached to two pins on the raspi. In the
> process of running ethernet cable from the crawlspace, we accidentally
> knocked into tamale and both the wires came loose. We don't know how
> they were attached! We'll try trial & error, but it would be very
> helpful if someone could help us, who actually put it together in the
> first place. How ironic that we finally get the outer door connected,
> and then we break the inner door.
>
> tl;dr could tamale's makers please help us fix the USB pins?
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