FICHET F3D

[dougfarre]

Here is a better link.
http://www.fichet-pointfort.fr/content/ ... CsOERY.pdf

The hardware that runs along the side of the door is AWESOME!!! I am sure that the price shown in that catalog is for all that stuff. There are like 6 different locking bolts along the edge of that door. Its incredible. I can't wait till one day I have something THAT important to secure.

[Fredmad]

The price you mentioned is only for the cylinder normally changed by a locksmith. That is the comune price for a Fichet in France. Actually the price to change a 787 is between 400 and 500 € taxe include. Of course this price is only for the cylinder not for the lock.

[mh]

I'd say that's a worse link, it shows the FICHET 787. Which is a great lock, too, but I'm looking for more details on the new F3D.

Cheers,
mh

[mh]

The price you mentioned is only for the cylinder normally changed by a locksmith. That is the comune price for a Fichet in France. Actually the price to change a 787 is between 400 and 500 € taxe include. Of course this price is only for the cylinder not for the lock.

Thanks for that info - wow, that's really ridiculous.
I guess it's safe to assume that people who put a FICHET lock on their door must have valuable stuff behind it...

Cheers,
mh

[greyman]

mh, Fichet has a strangle hold on high security in France. People treat the company like a god. There are many "Points Forts Fichet" around the country (France that is) that sell little else than Fichet product line. I've never seen anything like this anywhere else.

So let's put our thinking hats on and find some interesting weak points in this new lock of theirs!

By the way, the patent, which I have only had a real quick look at, seems to have side-by-side rotating gears. It may be that there are two contoured milled into the 3D key - sort of like the double helix in the advertising brochure.

[greyman]

That should be "two contoured tracks milled into the key". D a m n that INSERT key

[mh]

Luckily, on http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPOD ... 050369&F=1
there are also patents that include English and even German text.

It looks like a puzzle, where the "puzzle pieces" (#21 in the patent) need to turn and shift and then are pushed into the gears which also turn while they shift...
Although from the patent pictures, it's unclear to me why it might be hard to manipulate this mechanism, and also what actually happens once all the puzzle pieces are inside the gears. If there's not more to the mechanism than shown in the patent, it would be ridiculously easy to decode...

Cheers,
mh

[greyman]

mh, you seem pretty confident that it would be easy to decode - why is that?

I had another quick look at the pictures in the patent, still being too lazy to actually read it. I'm starting to think that there's some counter-rotating action in this lock, like in the Fichet 787. Maybe the key has two active contours on it. I'm guessing that the contours drive the paired gears in opposite directions and have to be such that their sliders come into alignment when the key is fully inserted.

Someone who's read the English version might like to check this out.

[mh]

mh, you seem pretty confident that it would be easy to decode - why is that?

I had another quick look at the pictures in the patent, still being too lazy to actually read it. I'm starting to think that there's some counter-rotating action in this lock, like in the Fichet 787. Maybe the key has two active contours on it. I'm guessing that the contours drive the paired gears in opposite directions and have to be such that their sliders come into alignment when the key is fully inserted.

Someone who's read the English version might like to check this out.

I don't think so, there are no sliders. The pieces that look like sliders are fixed, they make the gears rotate if the gears are shifted left or right.

The task is to push the inserts (#21) into these gears. That's what they call the 'pump action' in the marketing material.

It doesn't make full sense, because I don't understand how the gears behave while the inserts are not yet in them, but maybe the patent simply doesn't tell the full story and just contains the new and patentable parts. True obscurity....

Cheers,
mh

[n2oah]

Woah, that's quite a nice piece of hardware. It's definitely a fichet: over-engineered, awesome-looking, and pricey. I'd be interesting in getting one of these if at all possible (I'm still looking for a 787 exterior-type cylinder, too).

[greyman]

Hey n2oah, what do you mean by an exterior cylinder? All the Ficher 787s I've seen are the same format - 2D - Fichet's standard diameter cylinder with a flanged mounting onto the mortice lock.

BTW I found a tiny bit more info on Fichet F3D here:
http://www.batirenover.com/files/Batirenover/BR_NL_12.html

You have to click on "Pour en savoir plus" on the item "ZOOM SUR Une clé inviolable !".

It mentions that the lock has more than 11 million possible combinations.

Some nice pictures of the F3D key here ("Zoom sur"):
[/url]http://www.fichet-pointfort.fr/rewrite/site/30/point-fort-fichet.htm?idRubrique=60[url]

And here's a snippet (sorry - can't find the URL now!):

Partie « intelligente » de la serrure où l'on introduit sa clé, le cylindre est doté d'un « effet de pompe ». Il montre des capacités de résistance à l'effraction jamais vues jusque là : impossible pour le cambrioleur de « sentir » le moindre ressort de rappel. Sans repère, ce dernier n'a aucun moyen d'ouverture fine !
Le panneton (partie active de la clé qui rentre dans le cylindre) anime alors les pièces du cylindre par un mouvement complexe en 3 dimensions. Grâce à ce mouvement, la clé est reconnue, et l'ouverture de la porte autorisée.

Which translates as:

Intelligent part of the lock where the key goes in: the cylinder is endowed with a "pump action". It has unprecedented burglary resistance: impossible for the thief to "feel" the slightest spring feedback. Without this to guide him, he has no way to open the lock (nondestructively). The key bit moves the tumblers in a complex 3D action, bla bla bla.

No actual mechanical details, just marketing. Anyone got anything more interesting than this blurb?


[/url]

[mh]

It doesn't explain why I can't simply move the inserts (#21) into the right positions with an appropriate tool, even without any springs present...

[quintaux]

It mentions that the lock has more than 11 million possible combinations.

15^6=11390625
(14^6=7529536 and 16^6=16777216)

15=5x3
5 angular position and 3 radial position
or
3 angular position and 5 radial position ?

[greyman]

Hmmm quintaux, an interesting piece of maths. I'll need to look into that.

In the meantime, here's some more info, this time from the excellent protections-vol site:
http://protectvol.online.fr/Fichet-F3D.html

An extract from the patent says:

la clé F3D entre dans le cylindre selon l'axe X'-X ;
elle traverse le centre des roues dentées 32 & 33 qui tournent dans le sens horaire ou anti-horaire
selon les découpes de la clef, entraînant par la même les crémaillères ;
si toutes les découpes de la clef sont justes, l'ensemble des éléments est en position de déverrouillage ;
les taquets 44 & 45 sont libérés, la clef peut alors être poussée et tourner pour entraîner le mécanisme.

I'll attempt to translate this (refer to diagram in the link):

The F3D key is inserted along the X-X' axis; it goes through the middle of the gears 32 & 33, which turn CW or CCW according to the bittings of the key, driving the racks in turn. If all the key bittings are correct, the set of tumblers is put into the unlocking position; the brackets 44 & 45 are freed, the key can then be pushed in and turned to actuate the mechanism.

I've translated the word "taquet" as bracket - it could also be translated as "slider" (I think).

The info also says that Fichet spent 7 years perfecting the F3D system.

[mh]

The second patent gives better pictures, but can you understand the function of the 'brackets' or 'sliders' from them?
Maybe they are indeed sliders?

Cheers,
mh