How (NOT) to gut a medeco switch lock [FULL POST]
Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 9:44 pmSo, I have a few of these, and I wanted to take one apart and have a look around. I made a mistake in judgment as to how it was assembled so I would up destructively disassembling it by filing a ring around it. Now that said, it did prior to filing have very handy guide marks in the exact place to file... heh, the dirty bastards. The cutting, as it turn out is unnecessary, and one can actually remove the "half moon" retaining clips without such drastic measures by banging the shit out of one side of each clip until the other corner of the same clip raises enough to pry it out (Thanks FarmerFreak for that tip.)
These as other medeco cam locks are driverless, only keypins and a sidebar. So, basically you still have to rotate and raise the pins; however, instead of lifting the keypins to a shear between themselves and the drivers, you are looking to get the height and rotation right simultaneously so that the finger-pin from the sidebar will engage into a hole in the side of the keypin. to make things more interesting, they do include "false holes" that are too shallow to fully engage the sidebar pin. These false holes are deep enough however, to be able to capture the finger-pin from the sidebar. The keypins are also spooled at different heights (depending on the pin it may be either above or below the hole as well) just to make things more interesting. Some keypins may not have the spooling.
The pics can be clicked on to get a bigger and clearer view of any of the items too! Also, once you get the larger view you can click once more to zoom in further.
The face of the lock:
Side view showing messy filing cut:
Top view showing messy filing cut:
Pins - Notice the holes and spooling mentioned earlier... also the only pin in this set with false holes is the unspooled one.
View showing the top of one of the pins, one of the giant copper springs, and the side view of a pin showing the tab to prevent full rotation:
Clip that fits over the back of the plug to engage the return spring:
Said return spring:
This spring pushes outward on the plastic cam that actuates the SPDT micro switch:
Said plastic cam:
This is one of the "half moon" retaining clips... it is pretty badly mangled. I'd have gotten a pic of an undamaged one, but I dropped it and the garage floor ate it:
This is the outward facing side of the microswitch with the poles for connecting leads. The center pole is common:
"Top" of the microswitch, which is actuated by the plastic cam above:
Top view of plug (sidebar retracted):
Side view of plug showing sidebar:
Bottom view of plug:
Bottom view of plug refocused to show finger pins from sidebar: (circles to help draw attention to the pins)
Top view of plug refocused to show finger pins from sidebar: (No circles as the chambers themselves do the job)
These as other medeco cam locks are driverless, only keypins and a sidebar. So, basically you still have to rotate and raise the pins; however, instead of lifting the keypins to a shear between themselves and the drivers, you are looking to get the height and rotation right simultaneously so that the finger-pin from the sidebar will engage into a hole in the side of the keypin. to make things more interesting, they do include "false holes" that are too shallow to fully engage the sidebar pin. These false holes are deep enough however, to be able to capture the finger-pin from the sidebar. The keypins are also spooled at different heights (depending on the pin it may be either above or below the hole as well) just to make things more interesting. Some keypins may not have the spooling.
The pics can be clicked on to get a bigger and clearer view of any of the items too! Also, once you get the larger view you can click once more to zoom in further.
The face of the lock:
Side view showing messy filing cut:
Top view showing messy filing cut:
Pins - Notice the holes and spooling mentioned earlier... also the only pin in this set with false holes is the unspooled one.
View showing the top of one of the pins, one of the giant copper springs, and the side view of a pin showing the tab to prevent full rotation:
Clip that fits over the back of the plug to engage the return spring:
Said return spring:
This spring pushes outward on the plastic cam that actuates the SPDT micro switch:
Said plastic cam:
This is one of the "half moon" retaining clips... it is pretty badly mangled. I'd have gotten a pic of an undamaged one, but I dropped it and the garage floor ate it:
This is the outward facing side of the microswitch with the poles for connecting leads. The center pole is common:
"Top" of the microswitch, which is actuated by the plastic cam above:
Top view of plug (sidebar retracted):
Side view of plug showing sidebar:
Bottom view of plug:
Bottom view of plug refocused to show finger pins from sidebar: (circles to help draw attention to the pins)
Top view of plug refocused to show finger pins from sidebar: (No circles as the chambers themselves do the job)
