morning

@jippie: lol'd at those moose-shaped transmission line towers

Noob here, i have a toy which has a switch and i want to control that with my raspberry pi

I tried connecting 3.3v and also 5v to both the pins of the switch of the toy and it doesn't do anything. How can i debug this?

Hm, for restaurating old battery holder contacts I was thinking of plating them, but I have nothing like gold available... what other material would be likely ok that could be around? tin? copper?

@JavaRocky Power switch or an option switch? Why 5V or 3.3V - do you know that either is safe? (is it still working?) What's the DC voltage on the switch? Some switches (usually buttons though) are multiplexed, meaning you can't short it to the rail. Did you connect the grounds together? Did you try grounding the switch? (It's better to measure what the switch is doing normally first before throwing random voltages into a circuit)

@PlasmaHH Solder may work... copper will corrode quickly

@W5VO I had a chrome sheet lying around but cant find it anywhere :/

that would probably work fine too

@Li-aungYip What's the difference between Electrical Engineer and Mechanical Engineer? Electrical Engineer works with currents under 100mA.

hm, looks like the contacts where originally chrome plated (with layers of copper and nickel) ... now its gone.. one was even so bad it broke :/

@W5VO I don't know if it is a power switch or an option switch. I have 5v and 3.3v available on the raspberry pi. Yes it's still working fortunately. Desperation really thats why i tried those voltages. I tried grounding it to the raspberry pi but that didnt work either. I measured the voltage across the switch and it's 2.9v.

I tried measuring current via my multimeter via the COM port and mAV with it switched to 200mA and 20mA but nothing registers across the switch

@JavaRocky when you operate the switch manually, do you put any voltage on it?

@PlasmaHH i cant even work out how the switch works. Should i put a multi meter over it again?

@JavaRocky well, most switches I know provide contact between their pins..-

@p

@PlasmaHH im a seasoned programmer with an interest in electronics. sorry i'm an absolute beginner! appreciate your help!!

yes i can see two contacts on the switch

When i short the two contacts, the device activates