Wafer lock vs. Pin's

[Zeryl]

So I've looked aroudn a bit, and I know the difference between the two, but what advantage does a wafer lock have over a standard pin lock?

Only thing I could really think of is cost, but it really doesn't make alot of sense to me. Looking at the wafer locks on the desk i'm sitting at, it seems like there is a core, like a standard pin lock, I just don't see why wafer would be better than a pin lock.


(Btw, Love the site, started picking awhile ago, dropped it for awhile, and just got back into it over the weekend.)

Thanks!

[Shrub]

Just cost i think,

They are easily manufactured, require no tolerance to work and as said cheap to make,

The keys require a lot less tolerance when cut so the machinarey required to make the locks and cut the keys is cheaper,

[Zeryl]

And thus the reason any of this can be done, cost! Lol.

[unbreakable]

Thats what it all boils down to. MONEY

Even with all the bumpkey hype, pin tumblers will probabley be around for many more years.......simply cause of the cost to replace them.

[Kaotik]

IMO, it is just more economical for a manufactor to use wafer locks to equip there products with, and leave it up to the consumer to replace it with something more secure if need be.

It's cost effective for the manufactor.

[p1ckf1sh]

One reason that is missing is the more compact form factor. For a pin tumbler you always need a kind of shell extension that holds the springs and allows for the movement of the pins. Imagine those cheap money box locks or cheap file cabinet locks. You'd need to add up quite something dimensionwise to make those a pin tumbler.

[illusion]

I expect wafer locks fair better in harsh weather conditions since there are less moving parts. Cost is probably the biggest factor though.

[Shrub]

Wafer locks actually in practice are worse in weather imho, the plugs are usually cast alloy and as such corrode quite badly jamming the wafers but obviously a good lube and movement loosens them up a lot quicker and easier than a pin tumbler but the lock will get to the stuck point quicker than a pin tumbler does in my experiance,

[matchew1579]

I would say that wafer locks are not used for economical purposes, directly anyway. I think they are used for ease of rekeying. If you think about it, in an office (a pretty common place to find wafer locks) you have employee turnover, lost keys and just the sheer volume of locks to deal with. If an employee loses their keys, why waste the time to cut a new key. let's just pop out the old core and pop in a new one. Of course, it does boil down to saving money, but not in a direct way. The manufacturer isn't really looking to save money. He is filling a market need. The real money savers are the building managers. It costs $20 conservitavely to have a building maintenence technician cut a new key, whereas it costs only $7 to have the same tech swap out the lock.

[linty]

it takes me more time to rekey a wafer lock than the average pin tumbler, though some can swap cores quickly, many of them require you first remove the lock, which is also more of a pain than the average pin tumbler.

these locks are generally used not as a serious security measure but as a mild deterrent to keep people out of places they should be. A great many of these locks even have a code right on the lock itself, and pundra for example only has 243 cuts in total so in a big building you're guaranteed some cross-keying.
the only advantages are size and cost and the simplicity of integrating a cam lock into just about any office purpose.

when security is valued above price there are tubular, medeco or abloy (among other) cam locks which would be a much better choice

[LockNewbie21]

I don't know i seen wafers on places you wouldn't believe.

Actually quite funny, i seen my first medeco lock used on a residential application, we were building a deck in a i'd say 300,000 per house mark neihborhood. The deck was on the rear, so My uncle went around back to size up slope to see how much he could make me dig, while i rang the door bell at 6am... not my favorite part of the day.. but noticed a really nice medeco fixture, i actually thought someone besides me knew locks.. i guessed wrong.

Around back they had a sliding glass door with a wafer lock on it Didn't even have one of those door stoppers in the track.

What a waste of a good lock

[Kaotik]

I would say that wafer locks are not used for economical purposes, directly anyway. I think they are used for ease of rekeying. If you think about it, in an office (a pretty common place to find wafer locks) you have employee turnover, lost keys and just the sheer volume of locks to deal with. If an employee loses their keys, why waste the time to cut a new key. let's just pop out the old core and pop in a new one. Of course, it does boil down to saving money, but not in a direct way. The manufacturer isn't really looking to save money. He is filling a market need. The real money savers are the building managers. It costs $20 conservitavely to have a building maintenence technician cut a new key, whereas it costs only $7 to have the same tech swap out the lock.

I would have to say just the opposite. The prices you mentioned would justify the difference in prices compared to what the manufacturer would look upon spending for the future of interchanging of cylinders, hince the cheap price. "It's cheaper" and easier to manufactor the lock and sell to the company and the wholesale buyer to put on their products.

[matchew1579]

It does indeed cost less to produce these locks, but in the end, an office doesn't want to call out a locksmith every time that an employee loses their key. Changing of the cylinder or rekeying is done by an in-house maintenence tech, and needs to be done quickly. Labor is getting expensive these days! Of course, there isn't much security in a wafer lock with a cam holding a cabinet closed, but in an office building, there doesn't really need to be. If I'm away from my desk and have my drawer locked, I would hope that my cubicle mate would alert a supervisor that someone is using a crowbar on my top drawer.

All in all, the end user is the one making the selection of hardware, and the manufacturer is happy to comply. While it may cost less initially to install a wafer lock, the difference isn't that much when you talk about the volumes involved. A cheap pin-tumbler could be used, but would be much more involved and require a higher level of training in your mainenence techs to rekey than to swap out a wafer.