Re: LaGard 3332 2M Frustration
flywheel wrote:I won one at the end of last week. Should be here today!
So have you been playing with the LaGard 2M yet?
Here's my update. I received the EZ Amp from MBAusa.com and started experimenting with it. I do not have a metal lock stand built yet for this LaGard 2M, so I just rigged it so it rested on the lock body and started experimenting. I also tried it on my gun safe/floor safe for comparison. My opinion is that just resting it on the body was fairly comparable to putting it on a safe door after comparing the two. I want to test it on a metal stand, but this was a start.
Side note: using audio in conjunction with observations at the dial takes some getting used to. I found that I was getting too focused on what I was hearing and not really pairing it well with what I was seeing. The lock amp definitiely allows you to hear muthafuckin' everything going on inside the lock. It also is tricky to use because if the volume is adjusted to hear the light sound of contact points, it will sound like a hand grenade went off in your skull when you hit something loud like picking up a wheel when spinning aggressively. Ouch.
So I had hoped that amplification would allow me to more accurately determine the exact moment on the dial when the fence makes contact with the wheel pack. My hope was that it would require a TINY bit more dial rotation to pull the fence to the wheels when a gate was under the fence...No dice. There is no difference, folks. And I do not need to rig up any wires or rods to tell me in this case. I got really minute in how I read the dial (actually splitting the white line into three sections) and there is no difference. Think about the mechanics of what we are hoping will happen. We are talking about detecting the extra thousandth of an inch that the fence will drop when it's over a gate AFTER that movement is translated through levers and springs and pivots and the dial. The differential is not detectable at the dial. I would LOVE for someone to prove me wrong but I am convinced.
Next, I looked at our "sound signature" theory. Recalling that many of you correctly identified gates in my video based only on sound, I hoped that the amp would help me hear even more. I am not as convinced that this won't work, but my initial impression is that the unaided ear allowed me to hear more subtle tone changes. Yes, the amp made those tone changes LOUDER but I didn't really feel like I was taking in MORE good information, just more volume. I will keep trying. I am eager to see if anything changes when the lock is mounted on metal.
As it presently stands, I feel like I am back at the drawing board. For those of you who have a 3332 in your collection, please let me know if you come up with something!
Trevor