Air pick-gun

[silent]

I was thinking about making an electric pick last night but thought of something different......
Is it possible/safe to move the pins of a lock using an aircompressor or co2 cartridges? I know they make regulators for pressure too. Any ideas on this would be good.

[ReverseLogic]

It is theoreically possible. I believe I may have heard of such devices, but couldn't tell you anything concrete. I've thought about taking one of those air duster things (those cans of compressed gas used to clean electronics and such) and shooting that into a lock, while applying very light tension. I was thinking it might work on a principle similar to a snap gun. Obviously the chances of getting this working are slim, but it might make a fun little afternoon project. One problem I do see, however, is that the blast of gas is likely to shove the bottom pin up past the shear line as well.

Another idea would be to make a pnumatic pick gun that functioned similarly to an electric lockpick, but then again an electric one would be more efficient and smaller, anyway.

Good luck.

-RL

[silent]

Thats what I was thinking to, but a co2 cartridge is small. My racing bike tires have a small co2 pump, so i might nbe able to put a bike needle on it and give it a try.

[Mad Mick]

The problem here (IMO), is that the air pressure inside the plug (assuming you could get a good enough seal on the plug face) is likely to push upon the pins equally. The mass/weight of the lower pins is different between each key cut and, combined with the tension of the matching springs, it it unlikely that the pins would arrive at the shear line in unison.

In contrast, a conventional pick gun employs the billiard ball effect, where striking all of the pins at once results in separation between the upper and lower pins at the shear line.

[CaptHook]

I agree with Mick. Im not even sure you could get any seal, it you could on the face, the keyway is still open in the back.
Chuck

[ReverseLogic]

I'll agree with mick too, on pressurising the entire plug, but that was not was I was thinking. I was thinking more along the lines of blowing it at the individual pins. Think of the pins as ball bearings. If you were to spray one of the ball bearings, so as to get it rolling in the direction of the other one, and to get them to collide, the first ball bearing should stop moving, and transfer its energy to the second ball, ala a pickgun. This is of course reliant on the fact that when you spray the first ball, you do not spray the second ball, and also on the fact that as soon as the first ball transfers its energy, you stop spraying, to keep the first ball from moving again. It's this stopping of the spraying that I believe will be the biggest problem to this situation. I hope this isn't too confusing, but it's one in the morning and I've been up since 7:30 Maybe I can be clearer in the morning.

Night all.


-RL

[silent]

back to the drawing board.....

[plot]

well, if you look at the concept of how a pick gun works, it wouldn't work at all.

pressure wouldn't hit the pins at the same time or equally, wouldn't transfer the energy through the pins, and the gas would have to be evactuated from the plug as fast as it was pushed into the plug, otherwise it'd just keep pushing the pins up.

[Absinthe]

Well one could use the pressure to work the snap blade instead of a spring, and use a regulator to control how much pressure. But I think this is an expensive design for a simple tool.

[webidiot2]

I think that looks like it might work. It's pretty self-explanatory.

[Chrispy]

It would have to be specialised for each individual brand/type of lock to accomodate the spacing differences and it would have to be of a pressure high enough to lift the pins (ie. air pressure higher than spring pressure). Also, the air would escape, so the air pressure would have to be even higher.

Do-able? Maybe.

[webidiot2]

Makes sense, it would be very James Bond-ish and cool

[silent]

the thread is back from the DEAD

[raimundo]

Mick is correct as far as he goes, also, air forced in under pressure will move pins up only as long as the pressure above the pins remains lower. The factor that Mick didn't deal with is the one that always allows locks to be picked, the shear line tendency to hang at just the right place. Since this is metal to metal blockage, it would be more than the mass weight of pins under spring pressure. and again, the problem of if it pushesthem up, will it let them back down, comes up. One could use a little impeller like the one in the paashe H type airbrush paint gun to intermittantly break the steady pressure, allowing the pins to drop. It just an idea.

[Octillion]

I think the most logical solution is something like what webidiot2 has pictured above, and to just send a very quick blast of air that is strong enough to push up the pins, but not so strong or long enough a blast to push the pins all of the way up. You only want to knock the bottom pins up a bit, then have the bottom pins knock up the drivers.

But however it is done, even if it works I can't see how it would ever be practical, it would only be good for some "WOW" factor. A simple pick gun is easy enough to use, only has a few parts, not terribly expensive. Maybe the only benefit would be that there would be little or no evidence of picking, and it may also clean some debris out of the lock.

A pneumatic type oscillating pick gun would similarly be impractical, and likely be a lot louder than an electric.