Public Service Announcement

[hilldweller]

If like me you felt secure behind your multi-point locking re-enforced UPVC doors, it might be time to think again.

These doors are normally secured by Euro Lock cylinders, (the ones that look like a large key-hole in profile).

It seems that many of these locks can be defeated in seconds by methods known as "bumping" and "snapping", (do your own research.)

The answer is to replace the cylinders with anti-bump and anti-snap cylinders which have extra steel re-enforcement and shear lines designed to leave the door secure if "snapped".

I obtained replacement cylinders from a Shalesmoor locksmith for just under £30 each.

They can be fitted by a competent DIYer.

Just locate the large screw-head in the edge of the door level with the lower part of the cylinder, remove it, insert the key and waddle the key until the internal cam clears the lock and the thing slides out. Make careful measurement from the centre-line of the screw hole to the two end faces, (measurements may well be different i.e. 45/40mm) I understand they range from 35/35 mm to 60/60 mm in 5 mm steps. If the existing cylinder projected more than 5 or 6 mm from the outside handle set consider a smaller one. The idea is to not have more than 2 or 3 mm projecting. My cylinders had 10 mm projecting (all they had in the back of the van ?).

Replacement is by reversing the removal procedure.

I don't want to create alarm and despondency but the tools to defeat these locks are freely available on the internet and in any workshop.

HD

[Waterside Echo]

If like me you felt secure behind your multi-point locking re-enforced UPVC doors, it might be time to think again.

These doors are normally secured by Euro Lock cylinders, (the ones that look like a large key-hole in profile).

It seems that many of these locks can be defeated in seconds by methods known as "bumping" and "snapping", (do your own research.)

I don't want to create alarm and despondency but the tools to defeat these locks are freely available on the internet and in any workshop.

HD

Thanks for the warning 'hilldweller,' though doing my own research on the family laptop proved more difficult thanks to 'Netintelligance', this denies access to certain websites much to the annoyance of the younger ones. Maybe a good idea to have a post devoted to items of importance like this. W/E.

[hilldweller]

Thanks for the warning 'hilldweller,' though doing my own research on the family laptop proved more difficult thanks to 'Netintelligance', this denies access to certain websites much to the annoyance of the younger ones. Maybe a good idea to have a post devoted to items of importance like this. W/E.

One thing I forgot to mention is that "bumping" a lock leaves no sign of a forced entry.

This gives the insurance companies an excuse to avoid a payout. " Sorry squire you must have left the door unlocked."

Try proving otherwise.

HD

Postscript.

After 10 minutes on the t'internet I found a website selling a set of 6 bump keys, advertised to open most locks for £35.

HD

[DaveH]

If like me you felt secure behind your multi-point locking re-enforced UPVC doors, it might be time to think again.

These doors are normally secured by Euro Lock cylinders, (the ones that look like a large key-hole in profile).

It seems that many of these locks can be defeated in seconds by methods known as "bumping" and "snapping", (do your own research.)

The answer is to replace the cylinders with anti-bump and anti-snap cylinders which have extra steel re-enforcement and shear lines designed to leave the door secure if "snapped".

I obtained replacement cylinders from a Shalesmoor locksmith for just under £30 each.

They can be fitted by a competent DIYer.

Just locate the large screw-head in the edge of the door level with the lower part of the cylinder, remove it, insert the key and waddle the key until the internal cam clears the lock and the thing slides out. Make careful measurement from the centre-line of the screw hole to the two end faces, (measurements may well be different i.e. 45/40mm) I understand they range from 35/35 mm to 60/60 mm in 5 mm steps. If the existing cylinder projected more than 5 or 6 mm from the outside handle set consider a smaller one. The idea is to not have more than 2 or 3 mm projecting. My cylinders had 10 mm projecting (all they had in the back of the van ?).

Replacement is by reversing the removal procedure.

I don't want to create alarm and despondency but the tools to defeat these locks are freely available on the internet and in any workshop.

HD

Thanks for the warning hilldweller,

I prefer this method of protecting this type of lock without replacing it.

From a mains socket inside the house close to the lock in question, plug in a step up transformer, or improvise one by connecting a step down transformer in reverse. Most transformers have a 20:1 step down ratio to lower 240 to 12 volts, so in reverse it would bump the 240 up to just short of 5000V. Run the live wire from this up to the lock, concealed on the inside of the house and attach it to the inside metal barrel of the lock. Switch it on and leave set up.

This should prevent anyone from tampering with the lock from the outside and give them what they desrve if they try!

Now before anyone tries to tell me this is illegal (I know it is), remember that it is also illegal to break into someones house by bumping the locks.

It seems that a householders right to protect his property and to use reasonable force has gone. The priciple of an Englishmans home being his castle has well and truly gone.

However the days when the "rights" of criminals are more important than those of their victims and the idea that we should have sympathy for criminals and make excuses for their crimes are right here with us.

Rant over, now bring back Albert Pierrepoint, - November 9th 1965 was a sad day for the ideals of British Justice.

[hilldweller]

Thanks for the warning hilldweller,

I prefer this method of protecting this type of lock without replacing it.

From a mains socket inside the house close to the lock in question, plug in a step up transformer, or improvise one by connecting a step down transformer in reverse. Most transformers have a 20:1 step down ratio to lower 240 to 12 volts, so in reverse it would bump the 240 up to just short of 5000V. Run the live wire from this up to the lock, concealed on the inside of the house and attach it to the inside metal barrel of the lock. Switch it on and leave set up.

This should prevent anyone from tampering with the lock from the outside and give them what they desrve if they try!

Now before anyone tries to tell me this is illegal (I know it is), remember that it is also illegal to break into someones house by bumping the locks.

It seems that a householders right to protect his property and to use reasonable force has gone. The priciple of an Englishmans home being his castle has well and truly gone.

However the days when the "rights" of criminals are more important than those of their victims and the idea that we should have sympathy for criminals and make excuses for their crimes are right here with us.

Rant over, now bring back Albert Pierrepoint, - November 9th 1965 was a sad day for the ideals of British Justice.

Tiny snag with that idea, connecting a step-down transformer in reverse would result in extremely high ampere-turns in the new primary, resulting in extreme saturation of the transformer core and resulting in a current draw sufficient to blow the fuse in milli-seconds. Transformers are wound for a certain turns per volt depending on size with larger ones wound for volts per turn.

Years ago I was asked by a company to find out why some extremely expensive continental audio equipment was blowing fuses all the time. The answer was that the mains transformer, a toroidal type was wound for 220/230 volts and the UK voltage even nowadays can go up to 253 volts. Toroidal transformers don't have an air gap as such and are easily saturated. The answer was a replacement transformer. The harmonisation of our mains voltage to 230 volts was just a paper exercise. It used to be 240 volts plus and minus 6% (225.6 to 254.4 volts ) and is now specified at 230 volts plus 10% and minus 6% (216.2 to 253 volts) We should by now be on plus and minus 10% but that has been resisted because of difficulties in making equipment work over such a wide range. British incandescent lamps are marked 230/240 but are designed for 240 volts.

HD

[DaveH]

Tiny snag with that idea, connecting a step-down transformer in reverse would result in extremely high ampere-turns in the new primary, resulting in extreme saturation of the transformer core and resulting in a current draw sufficient to blow the fuse in milli-seconds. Transformers are wound for a certain turns per volt depending on size with larger ones wound for volts per turn.

Years ago I was asked by a company to find out why some extremely expensive continental audio equipment was blowing fuses all the time. The answer was that the mains transformer, a toroidal type was wound for 220/230 volts and the UK voltage even nowadays can go up to 253 volts. Toroidal transformers don't have an air gap as such and are easily saturated. The answer was a replacement transformer. The harmonisation of our mains voltage to 230 volts was just a paper exercise. It used to be 240 volts plus and minus 6% (225.6 to 254.4 volts ) and is now specified at 230 volts plus 10% and minus 6% (216.2 to 253 volts) We should by now be on plus and minus 10% but that has been resisted because of difficulties in making equipment work over such a wide range. British incandescent lamps are marked 230/240 but are designed for 240 volts.

HD

To be honest hilldweller, I have never tried it with a mains transformer as, except for something dangerous and illegal like my proposal as a burglar defence, I can't see that there would be much need to step the mains up. OK we used to do it TV to get the very high voltages required to power and control a large screen cathode ray tube (now almost obsolete) but that was a specialist application.

To do it with a 240V to 12V mains transformer in any case would invariably involve removal of some diodes or rectifiers which convert the AC to DC, and possibly some large smoothing capacitors and chokes as we would be doing an AC to AC conversion only.

I have stepped voltages up and down in physics lessons at work to show power line transmission and why pyloned cables use such high voltages. However, for health and safety in school we are limited to the maximum voltage we can use. We use "transformer kits" which consist of laminated iron "C-cores" which can be clipped together and fitted with a number of pre-wound coils containg either 60, 120, 1200 or 2400 turns. They can be used in any combination. I usually use a lab pack set to 3V AC to reprent the power station and use the 1:20 step up transformer (60 primary turns, 1200 secondary) to give me 60V to send along about 2 metres of suspended nichrome resistance wire (representing the long lengths of wire used in power transmission. At the other end is the reversed transformer 20:1 which represents the sub station and gives me my 3V volts back which I use to light a torch bulb. Without the step up / step down transformers in place, the 3V AC on its own allows insufficient current to flow through the 2 metre wires to light the bulb at the other end.

There are also the reversible step up / step down transformers that used to be used in radios and the like for either isolating DC or impedence changing. These are usually quite small and not intended to handle a deal of power. I once used one to make an electric shock machine from a circuit abtained from practical wireless. It ran from a 9V battery (PP series) and consisted of a 2 transistor oscillator (actually just a multivibrator circuit) to get from DC to AC with its output fed into this small transformer which was intended as an audio frequency impedance matching transformer, but it was used "backwards", i.e. the oscillator output was fed in to the transformers secondary windings and a much higher voltage (but much lower and therefore safe current) was then available at what would normal be its primary windings. I seem to remember it gave about 120V, could give you a safe but quite sharp shock and it could light up a small neon pilot light which normally strikes at about 90V

I think that's about as far as I have got to electrocuting anyone by this method, - and the person on the receiving end was usually me.

[hilldweller]

I think that's about as far as I have got to electrocuting anyone by this method, - and the person on the receiving end was usually me.

Now that's one bee in my bonnet that you have mentioned there.

Time after time in newspapers and TV news you hear about some-one being electrocuted and making a good recovery in hospital. The only place an electrocuted person goes to is the mortuary. If the victim is recovering, then they have been shocked and perhaps burned but certainly not electrocuted. To be electrocuted is to be killed by electricity.

Rant over.

HD

[DaveH]

Now that's one bee in my bonnet that you have mentioned there.

Time after time in newspapers and TV news you hear about some-one being electrocuted and making a good recovery in hospital. The only place an electrocuted person goes to is the mortuary. If the victim is recovering, then they have been shocked and perhaps burned but certainly not electrocuted. To be electrocuted is to be killed by electricity.

Rant over.

HD

You are correct it does literally mean that.

But it is a made up word.

It dates back to about 1890 when the US Government offered a monetary prize for anyone devising a "humanane method for the execution of criminals".

Tom Edison, the famous inventor, the worlds most prolific inventor, many of who's inventions were prefixed with the word "electric" which at the time was the marvel of the age, eg "the electric light" was up first with "the electric chair" method of execution.

But it was more than that, - he had a grievance as well as a prize in mind. He had recently lit up the city of New York with his new electric lights and had had to produce the power stations to do it. Edison foolishly chose to use DC and due to the resistance of the wiring even at 110V each "station" could only power a couple of blocks, so he needed a lot of stations to power all the City. However, his rival, Westinghouse, was in favour of AC rather than DC and by clever use of transformers (see my other posts about AC / DC and transformers) could have powered the entire City from a single station and so looked like getting the contract to electrify the whole of the USA rather than Edison.

Edison chose to use AC in his "electric chair" to both win the Government prize and to proove to the world that AC was more dangerous than DC and so discredit Westinghouse.

Westinghouse came up with an alternative form of the electric chair which used DC to try to prove the opposite and counter Edisons argument.

As is usually the case, there was no real winner in this dispute, eventually the Government, impressed with Westinghouse's demonstration of AC power transmission went with AC (at a frequency of 60Hz) much to Edisons dismay even though AC was clearly better for mains power supply. However, as AC power supplies were rolled out across the USA, including to it's State Penetentiaries, it was clear that any "electric chair" in these institutions would be AC powered, - which was Edisons design!

However I digress,

During the development of the electric chair a word was needed to mean "executed by use of an electric current" as all other forms of execution had names, "hanging", "beheading", "gassing" etc. Words such as "electrokill", "electrodeath" and "electromort" were considered before "electrocute" was decided upon as being the best. Criminals could then be sentenced to "Death by electrocution in the electric chair"