OT-ish... what to do with > 400 relays...

From: William Donzelli <aw288_at_osfn.org>
Date: Thu Feb 19 23:49:41 2004

> The wires would them be cut to length, stripped, tinned (coated with solder)
> and placed onto the board. Lacing cord would then be usig to tie the wires
> together (I can still do a half decent running stitch, but can not find any
> waxed lacing cord....).

You still can buy it, as the telco people use it. The Ace hardware at the
ground floor of 60 Hudson St. (New York telco and networking folk should
know this place) actually had rolls on the shelves.
 
I can still stitch up things with the cord, but I am not fast like the
old timers. Way back at USR, we were given a contract to built the first
AT&T Worldnet dialup cabinets. Being Bell, lacing was specified (along
with *every* last detail, unlike the "pound to fit, paint to match"
engineering that was AOL Big Dial dialup). I was the only one at USR that
could lace up harnesses, so I spent something like six hours on one
cabinet. Out of 240. People were not happy. We convinced AT&T to just use
tiewraps.

The best lacing job I have ever seen is on World War 2 submarine power
panels. Essentially, it is a standard stitch, but there is NO space
between the loops. You can not see the wires thru the lacing.

William Donzelli
aw288_at_osfn.org
Received on Thu Feb 19 2004 - 23:49:41 GMT