Security dinner theatre

[hirez]

I've been quietly fiddling with a set of picks and a demo lock for a few months now. I fear I must admit that I've been getting precisely nowhere.

Earlier, I was digging through the coffee tins filled with random stuff in the cupboard under the stairs, hunting for some longish nails to use as soil probes so I could build an Arduino-based pot plant monitor. As well as finding more or less the right sort of nails, I found a pair of padlocks that I probably bought on the off-chance that I'd need to secure, er, something.

For a laugh, I set about the one on the left first. Probably because the thing sprang apart with a reassuring clank when you operated the key.

I fiddled with the picks for a few seconds and, lo! It sprang open with a somewhat less reassuring clank.

I tried it again, just to be sure. The same result. On the third go, I leaned on the torsion lever a bit harder. It sprang open with a not-reassuring-at-all-now clank, the picks some few centimetres away in my other hand.

I'm rather glad I never used that one, though it looks all hefty and secure and everything.

The one on the right required actual work. Admittedly only about eight or ten seconds of ham-fistery, but still. That one came from a proper shop, too.

In short: Yikes.

Meanwhile, the potential pot plants I want to monitor may end up as chili bushes.

Comments

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

Gah. Am now looking at lockpicks online. My work browsing history is now a justifiable termination waiting to happen.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Glad to be of service!