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A place to post/swap pick CAD files. I know that there are many users here, myself included that have capabilities to take a drawing and cutting out a part.

I think that it may be nice to share what works for you and see what works for someone else. Or maybe some folks that have the interest to cut out parts will want to take custom orders perhaps.

For every person who can cut parts, there has to be at least ten that know how to draw parts that wish that there was someone who would cut them out for them.

Maybe eventually we could start a github.com project with all the picks in it. Kind of like what rep-rap did.

I guess what I am trying to facilitate is open source hardware designs. I contribute to a few open source software projects, so maybe that's where this motive is coming from.

It's just a thought. Tell me what ya's think.

Probably a good idea to have something like that in the "TOOLS" subforum. At one time there was another lockpicking forum whose primary purpose was as a repository for CAD files and templates for picks and other entry tools.

For the most part though, there was only one guy who uploaded any design files and the forum didn't last. I downloaded a lot of them, once I find where I put them I can upload them here. I've tried to get ahold of the owner of that old site to get a full backup copy of the forum database but I've been unable to so far.

What do you think about the github.com project for sharing?

LIke SparkFun.com: https://github.com/sparkfun/SparkFun-Eagle-Libraries.
RepRap: https://github.com/reprap/

Unfortunately some here are familiar with Mr. Towne; but there is a start of a project, all released under open source.

Ok, so I just started a repo. It is nothing more than Towne's files for the moment.

https://github.com/nicholaskell/LockPicks

I hope people fork it, add, remove, edit as they want.

I was thinking that maybe there could be another repo for excel documents? Or maybe a directory in the LockPicks repo, and maybe rename the repo to something more appropriate?

I'll talk to elbowmacaroni about just setting up a subforum here for them. That way, the files will be available as long as this forum exists. And at the moment, as long as I'm still alive I plan to keep this forum going as long as it's legal to do so.

In the past there have been attempts by forum members on lp101, ezpicking, lockpickology ,keypicking and a couple other smaller forums that are long gone, to archive these types of things on external sites. However in almost every case the external sites have gone under, the files lost, and the forum threads which referred to those links become orphans. If we have the files here, we can make sure they don't disappear. Our only concern will be in making sure that they are open-source or that we have permission from the creator to post them here.

I can set up a new subforum, but I want to make sure that there aren't any other technical considerations I should be aware of in the process since this will mainly be for file uploads. Elbow keeps good backups so even if something catastrophic were to happen to the servers where this site is hosted, we'll still be able to recover pretty much everything that matters.

I dont want my designs open source... but Id happily post my cad drafts for clifflockpicks if you had a subforum for it... not to be redistributed but for members to use...

Just a thought: Have a requirement that any file uploaded is under a license that you like. Or once the file is uploaded that it is the property of KP.com and the license is whatever you choose.

IMHO, from a reliability standpoint I think that git or any DVCS is much more reliable than any site can be. But, I can see how using a technical tool like git/github may be counter-intuitive.

Actually I have a paid github account for the site. We could make a public repo for something like this. Obviously the onyl requirement for committing CAD files to the repo would be that they were created by you so you hold the copyright OR they have been released under some sort of open source license (i.e. copylect, creative commons, etc...)

As to the ownership of the intellectual property that is committed to the repo, we'll have to figure out how we want to address that as well.

It is an interesting idea, the powers that be will discuss this. Thanks for the interesting idea!

For the past couple of months we've been discussing some ways to upgrade the forum, both to improve how information is organized as well as hosting additional files and resources like MonkeyKnight was talking about.

It's sort of been a backburner project and depends a lot on choosing some software and modifying the forum code before we can really get rolling. We've been a bit busy so we've been slow to get started on it, bit it's good to know that there is some demand for what we have planned. Might light a bit of a fire under us to finalize some decisions and get rolling on it.

My understanding is there is nothing illegal about lockpicking, freedom of speech, or sharing of information. Why does this have to enter the discussion at all?

At this point in time, but like the overlords like to do, they think they know what is best for us and it may change in the future.

We could always start with my ultimate handcuff key part file...

I am interested in getting a copy of the cad files for Cliff Picks. LSA said he didn't mind the being posted subject to them not being posted else where.

Interestingly enough I came across the cad files from DiyTds done by RedRavenSC and CompFX posted on a private site
It would be nice if we could get permission to post these.

Schulyer Towne's set of Cad files are posted on his fundraising site. They have been through 5 revisions with version 5
being last.


This is version 3 with some proper cad files

https://ia701203.us.archive.org/4/items/2012-schuyler-towne-rev3-cad-etching/CAD_and_Etching.zip

There is also a version 5 that I lost the link to.

This is a link to Schuyler's ver 5 cad etching template.

Is there an easy way to isolate just one or two picks. The ai and pdf file has designs for more than 50 picks all on one page.

https://archive.org/stream/2012-schuyler-towne-rev5-cad-etching/Etching_Rev_5_Picks