[Noisebridge-discuss] Access

[Jonathan Lassoff]

On Thu, Jul 4, 2013 at 2:45 PM, Jake <jake at spaz.org> wrote:
> Shannon,
>
> last night Leif said that the latch mechanism was failing to keep the door
> locked, and that one could simply push the door open.  I don't know if
> someone did something to change it after that.
>
> As for the payphone, it is important to know whether the phone is beeping
> when you enter the code.  If it makes a blip noise when you press keys, but
> no other noises when you press # (a happy or sad tone) it is a sign that
> Minotaur is not running baron.py to talk to the phone.
>
> if you press the keys and no sound is heard at all, it suggests that the
> wires are disconnected or minotaur is without power!
>
> I sent a message to the rack list because minotaur had locked up twice on
> tuesday.  At one point minotaur locked up WHILE energizing the door-open
> solenoid, so it was buzzing and heating up and almost smoking. Also the
> local DNS didn't work.  Rebooting minotaur fixed the problem but it did lock
> up again later (ping worked, ssh timed out)

Yikes -- I really don't think minotaur is a great place to run this
stuff, it's just what was handy.
That box was only ever really meant to be a console and out-of-band
server for network gear and computers in the space.

What would you think about running baron and the gate API on a Raspberry Pi?
Maybe another improvement we could make to the opening mechanism could
be a watchdog on the parallel interface that will disconnect the host
if it holds the gate open for too long. Maybe the Ethernet Arduino
could make a good network interface for manipulating the "door open"
state?

> as for the physical key not working, i have no idea.  Are you sure you were
> at the right address?

Sounds to me like the lock plug isn't engaging the latch, or the latch
is not present. The latter should be easy to test for. Just push open
the gate. :p