Laser cutter: Keys for inducted members

General
1

I know we all want an electronic RFID interlock which counts your laser time, solves the energy crisis and brings about world peace.

I mean, I do too.

But let’s be realistic here: that hasn’t happened yet, and right now I (and other inducted members) can’t use the machine unless either @devians or @crofty are present. So, in the meantime as a stopgap solution, I propose that we get, cut, or make some extra keys for the machine and give them to members who are inducted on the laser cutter. We could even engrave (no, not using the laser) the member’s name/handle on the key to make accountability harder to subvert.

What say we?

2

Help me install and write the software mod to get this working.

3

I’m happy to throw money at keys

4

Or… A few people can help me and we can have it installed and running on
Tuesday.

What needs to be done…
Tweak on the back end to accept time used.
Tweak in the code to record time used and send this to the server.
Install the hardware, finding the correct tie in points and mounting the
RFID coil.

It’s realy simple if many help (3-4 people) and know how to the present
system.

5

Sorry, wasn’t aware we had the hardware for this. Last I knew we didn’t.

Happy to help on Tuesday.

6

I am happy to help if you can point me at the code. Is it on GitHub?

Whatever we do, we should ensure it causes as little downtime as we can, i.e. no half-finished interlock preventing the machine from starting.

7

Agreed,
A simple change to the code to cause a swipe to “open forever” would satisfy in the short term if the extra features can’t be implemented.

Code is here if you want to take a look.

Have a look, the flash code should “fingers crossed” be easy to add another variable to support time.

Ask if you have any further questions.

8

It would be good if we could store ‘general attributes’ rather than
hardcoding time. I’m sure other machines might have things like that to
track.

9

Sure, but time in this instance means something and needs to be acted on.
I was working on the assumption that there would be two flavors of code.

One for doors, the other for machines.

As @nogthree is using a different protocol for the vending machines the system doesn’t need to support this anymore.
I think we will have all bases covered with this slight modification.