FAQ  •  Register  •  Login
UKLockpickers.co.uk Lockpicking supplies such as Lockpicks, tools, and more! COMMANDOLOCK.COM Military grade padlock systems lockpickshop.com A source for lockpicking supplies such as lockpicks, locksmith tools, and more!

Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

<<

l0ckcr4ck3r

User avatar

Familiar Face

Posts: 187

Joined: Wed May 22, 2013 2:01 am

Location: NC, US

Post Tue Jan 14, 2014 2:46 am

Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

First off.. a big thank you to fgarci03 for helping on the electronics on this one and as a sounding board for some of the development ideas!!! Also, many thanks to Squelch for printing the Flex PCBs for me so i could etch them!

This is not a new idea, in fact about a month after i dreamt it up and started work, i got access to the adv area over on the other site and found that i wasn't as innovative as i first thought. I found that the words "Arduino" & "Magnetic Encoder" have appeared in several posts about this lock already. I guess i can claim to be the first to get off my ass and build one!!

So how zit work? Well its just a 10bit rotary magnetic encoder chip soldered to a flexible PCB. The arduino then takes this information, adds 180 degrees to the reading to figure out what the key magnet should be to move the rotor to that position. Then it converts the 10 bit number to a 3bit one and displays the answer… basically that just tells you which of the 8 possible positions the rotor is encoded to. Arduino + Decoder = "Decoduino"

I still have to package this up in a fancy case, but wanted to share the tool with you guys now… Ill have it finished in maybe 4 weeks and ill then post all the schematics and build instructions for it. It will be released under the "CC Share-alike Non-comercial" license for open source development. I really hope this inspires some of you to improve on it, adapt it for say a MIWA or maybe just have a go at building some tool you've dreamed up but never thought you could get working. 4 months ago i just about knew ohms law… now SPI, I2C and micro controllers are opening up some interesting ideas for projects for me. If a couple of 14 year old kids can win the Robotic Soccer world cup… this stuff really is childs play!!!

Enjoy!!!

Image

Image

Image

and the stand alone PCB that will eventually drive it…..

Image

Image

Image

Image
<<

TheAdvancedNoob

User avatar

Familiar Face

Posts: 26

Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2011 3:01 pm

Location: tennessee

Post Tue Jan 14, 2014 6:47 am

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

:pimpmofo: cool. Could an arduino be made to scan through a digital safe combo? Or would it get a few codes wrong and lock you out for a while?
<<

GWiens2001

User avatar

Lock-Goblin-Gordon
Lock-Goblin-Gordon

Posts: 3795

Joined: Thu Oct 25, 2012 9:05 pm

Location: Arizona, United States

Post Tue Jan 14, 2014 6:49 am

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

Hopefully, an MCS wil be going into the mail for me today. Once I play with it a little, will likely be sending it off for Snowyboy's loving work. This decoder would be fantastic to use with a cutaway lock.

Thank you for sharing this, lockcracker.

Gordon
Just when you think you've learned it all, that is when you find you haven't learned anything yet.
<<

ARF-GEF

User avatar

Active Member

Posts: 451

Joined: Tue Nov 20, 2012 3:03 pm

Location: Eastern Europe

Post Tue Jan 14, 2014 7:36 am

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

Wow, wow, wow :D :D :D ! Congrats!
:D
To infinity... and beyond!
=== WARNING DANGER OF TYPOS!===
Arfspeak: calnin cladycomes: you allow her key in themodning
Equals in plain English: cleaning lady comes: you allow her key in the morning
<<

LockManipulator

User avatar

Active Member

Posts: 593

Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2012 6:33 pm

Location: California, US

Post Tue Jan 14, 2014 10:04 am

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

WOW! That's pretty amazing! Great work you did there :)
<<

l0ckcr4ck3r

User avatar

Familiar Face

Posts: 187

Joined: Wed May 22, 2013 2:01 am

Location: NC, US

Post Tue Jan 14, 2014 10:16 am

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

So just a quick update.. now that I've received a few questions on how this picks….

Well it doesn't. You need to imagine that another tool is developed that is capable of picking the lock but has no idea what the magnetic bitting is. Then all that clever Austrian engineering is turned against its self. At the 3 o'clock position, the fingers of the sidebars will actually hold the rotors in the unlocked position and you can then use this tool to read 4 rotors in turn… flip it over and read out the other 4 on the opposite side. From there its a simple move to assemble a Make-up Key for the final humiliation of the lock ;-)

Hope that clears up some confusion :) So a note to all those others working on this lock…. keep going and good luck, i wanna see this thing slain in 2014!!!

@Daggers had some serious help from form my partner in crime fgarci03… It has been an experience learning how to make FPCs (flexible Printed Circuits) and honestly that was by far the hardest part.

There are some really cool Chip based sensors out there, it would be nice to see some other smart tools developed to help figure out whats going on inside different locks.
<<

LockManipulator

User avatar

Active Member

Posts: 593

Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2012 6:33 pm

Location: California, US

Post Tue Jan 14, 2014 10:19 am

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

l0ckcr4ck3r wrote:@Daggers had some serious help from form my partner in crime fgarci03… It has been an experience learning how to make FPCs (flexible Printed Circuits) and honestly that was by far the hardest part.

There are some really cool Chip based sensors out there, it would be nice to see some other smart tools developed to help figure out whats going on inside different locks.


That stuff sounds so cool! I want to get into that but have no idea where to start. Electronics confuse me a lot lol but I'm hoping one day that'll change!
<<

Farmerfreak

Active Member

Posts: 464

Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2010 7:00 pm

Location: SLC, Utah

Post Thu Jan 16, 2014 8:41 pm

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

:shock: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool:
<<

mbpick34

User avatar

Familiar Face

Posts: 146

Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2010 6:55 am

Location: Norway

Post Sat Jan 18, 2014 6:38 am

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

Nice work looks very interesting. :cool:
<<

l0ckcr4ck3r

User avatar

Familiar Face

Posts: 187

Joined: Wed May 22, 2013 2:01 am

Location: NC, US

Post Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:40 pm

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

Quick Update... ironed out all the bugs finally on the PCB and its now in a queue at the Fab. house, maybe 2 weeks to get them back :)

I made the first revision of the Metal Blade for the sense assembly.... still need to tweak the speeds and feeds a bit to get a better finish.

Image
Image
Image

The blade does 3 things... obviously it acts as a support for the FPC, the notches in the side will align the sensor in the center of each rotor to get a correct reading.... The third reason is not so obvious but think about it... the Hall array in the chip is measuring a magnetic field, what you don't want is the opposite rotor in the keyway messing with the reading. This is 430 grade stainless and is magnetic, so it shields the sensor from the rotor under it!

Image

It all takes a little longer than you expect... that key pin is from an American Lock, i hope you get some sort of scale now!!

Image

It all goes together like this... the USB port doesn't do anything clever, it just runs a LiPo charge chip so you can recharge it from your Laptop/PC or Cell phone charger.... for those days that you have to pick 50 or so MCSs ;-)

Image
<<

Presumedsublime

Familiar Face

Posts: 36

Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 5:04 pm

Location: St. Paul, MN

Post Mon Feb 17, 2014 6:41 pm

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

That looks stunning! I doubt if I'll ever need one but I want one just by the looks of it. Great work!
<<

huxleypig

User avatar

The Prestigious and Powerful Porcine Prelate

Posts: 954

Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 4:59 am

Location: West Mids, UK

Post Mon Feb 17, 2014 8:38 pm

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

Oh mate, this is very nice. I love it!
<<

Oldfast

User avatar

OldddffAASSTT the Spin Master Extraordinaire and American Lock Slayer
OldddffAASSTT the Spin Master Extraordinaire and American Lock Slayer

Posts: 4412

Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:16 am

Location: Michigan

Post Mon Feb 17, 2014 8:55 pm

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

I've gotta say that this shit is above my head to where I can't truly appreciate it. But still..... WOW
" Enjoy the journey AS MUCH as the destination."
<<

l0ckcr4ck3r

User avatar

Familiar Face

Posts: 187

Joined: Wed May 22, 2013 2:01 am

Location: NC, US

Post Mon Feb 17, 2014 10:19 pm

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

Sorry Oldfast, guess I've had my head buried in this project so long I've lost some perspective!!!

That little chip has some transistor type stuff in it arranged in a diamond... its called a "Hall Array" and what it does is sense what angle a magnetic field is. they use them in things like volume knobs in stereos that always keep turning and never stop! It just looks at the the face of a diametric magnet (with N/S poles across the face, rather than back and front) and figures out what angle its at. It a 10 bit sensor.. meaning is accurate to 2 to the power of 10 (binary talk) or 1024 different positions in 1 rotation. Basically it can sense the field to the nearest 1/3 of a degree. We don't need that accuracy, so we turn it in a 3 bit number.... 2 to power 3 happens to be 8 and thats exactly the number of different positions the rotors can have.

That Flexable circuit board was a nightmare to make but you just solder the chip onto it so it fits in the lock. The other board is bit more complicated but honestly... i just copied the schematic from a small arduino and then added on the schematic for a Lithium polymer charge that i found online. I didn't really invent any of it... kinda bolted what i found together.

Although i said i would open source the designs... I'm not sure how many other people will be crazy enough to have a go at building one :)

@Hux... Locks and CNC... it don't get much better ;-)
<<

elbowmacaroni

User avatar

Site Owner

Posts: 1354

Joined: Mon Nov 16, 2009 3:28 pm

Location: Florida

Post Tue Feb 18, 2014 1:07 am

Re: Decoduino - Decoder for the MCS

This, is a completely awesome post of an equally awesome project! Thank you for sharing your progress on this project as it is really cool and is a hot topic lately (the MCS and ways to decode/map/crack/bypass/"pick"/etc...)

This deserves most assuredly to be sticky, and now it is!


-Elbow :akimbo:
"Cave ab homine unius libri" - Beware of anyone who has just one book

(2014.02.09 - 23:26:03) huxleypig: i freaking love cream
(2014.02.09 - 23:27:11) huxleypig: hey, come on, cream is nice
(2014.02.09 - 23:27:37) huxleypig: aww, i suddenly feel very sick

(23:37:46) LocksmithArmy: you should see my school girl outfit
(23:37:50) LocksmithArmy: wait... what

(13:19:50) xeo: that chick will never be satisfied by a real dick
(13:19:54) NNFAK: I would man...

(22:59:49) PhoneMan: how do you let a forum die if users keep using it? kill the servers?

May those who love us, love us; and those who don't love us, may God turn their hearts; and if He doesn't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping

If someone had prince albert in a can, does that mean they'd have a killer codpiece?

(00:52:02) WolfSpring: elbow could sell a sandbox to an egyptian
Next

Return to Awol's Research & Development

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users

Don't forget to visit our sponsors for all of your lockpicking needs!
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Grop
"CA Black" theme designed by stsoftware