Building a robot to discover the combo of this old Yale safe...

[carlenebonstein]

i think they used the yale ob/b and yale 028 locks the 028 is a 4 wheel pack ,lot more than the 1 million combo's on the three wwheel packs.
some auto dialers take overnight or more. long time ago they had one that would work in a hour or so,the feds got most of them and i do not recall the name. the dialer left brass every where and the lock was ruined. maybe someone here could remember who made the dialer,it sure ruined the lock.

[BBE]

i think they used the yale ob/b and yale 028 locks the 028 is a 4 wheel pack ,lot more than the 1 million combo's on the three wwheel packs.
some auto dialers take overnight or more. long time ago they had one that would work in a hour or so,the feds got most of them and i do not recall the name. the dialer left brass every where and the lock was ruined. maybe someone here could remember who made the dialer,it sure ruined the lock.

I don't know that it was a dialer so much as a drill motor attached to the dial. The high speed rotation effectively ate the wheels inside until the fence was captured.
BBE.

[Brian Smith]

Thanks, Brian. That's a great point. With hundreds of thousands of likely potential combination, it's definitely going to get a work. I like the idea of a lube injector. I'll noodle on that. The story from the guy I bought the safe from was that it hasn't been opened in 30 years. At 10 open/close cycles/day, that's 3,650 per year... and 30 years is 109,500. Maybe that'll buy me a little luck... and some time.

Question for you: would the speed of turning the dial affect wear? If I slow it down it will take longer to get there... but if it causes less wear then I would do that. The primary objective of the project is to crack combination, but if there's a way to preserve the the mechanism somewhat then that would be preferable.

Yes, the speed makes a big difference, especially with an older lock. The bearing surface is brass on brass. Clean or lubed, it can coast if you approach the stop too quickly. If it's dirty, it can stall or chatter at the same spot. Also if the turner hits the fly (the stop between wheels) too hard it can bend (if solid) or move the center (if a change wheel). Keep it as close as human action as possible.

[Doug MacQueen]

This is most likely the lock used. Similar to the Yale OB, but unlike the Yale it will not come to a stop on it's own. Unless the driver motor is sensitive enough to ID the increase in torque required to pop the fence back out of the wheel pack.

[Doug MacQueen]

I am pretty sure I dialed this one open, which means the contact point were identifiable. That being the case, a constant last number stopping point can used in the program.

[Doug MacQueen]

It is also possible, although much less common, that they weren't immediately identifiable and shadowed by the other wheels, not showing up until I had made some progress. I just can't remember on that one.

[Doug MacQueen]

I looked again at your Baum safe and realized that it was not the safe I first thought it was. Duh! Handle and dial are on the same plane and clearly a Yale dial, so the odds are extremely likely it will be the more common Yale OB lock. Most Baums use a 3 wheel lock but a wheel count should be done first. And with the OB lock the dial will come to a positive stop turning the dial to the right, regardless of 3 or 4 wheels. So the sequence for the 3 wheel will be 4L-3R-2L-1R to stop. A 4 wheel is 5R-4L-3R-2L- 1R to stop. If a 4 wheel lock is found, you might want to rethink the challenge, if you are just building a simpler auto dialer. I don't use one but I think the wear factor would be extreme. Have the motor speed adjustable so it can be fine tuned to find the right compromise of dialing slow enough to prevent wheel walk and fly damage, but not so slow that it takes forever. I think the ones on the market run through the possibles in about 30 hours. I have seen them running and I think that is too fast to prevent wheel walk, unless there is a big slow down arc prior to reversing direction. I would slow it down considerably.