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medeco madness

PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 12:02 pm
by the picker
so after not picking for about 5 months i grabbed my picks and went to work on my medecos and surprisingly enough my skills have not diminished much and with the warmer weather i feel a second wind coming on and my thirst for picking reignited :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 12:10 pm
by ARF-GEF
First of all congratulations! :)
The locks are nice and the picking is nice too.

I have to related questions:
What is your opinion on diminishing skills? Is it such a major thing really or is it something less actual loss of practice and more psychological. For example you don1t forget swimming. You might et a bit worse but you barely lose your "skillset" if you don't swim for 3 months.

Secondly Medecos got me confused...
Not all medecos are axially rotating right?
Which ones are rotating and which ones aren't'?
What's the difference between m3 and biaxial?
I know medeco bilevel is just a regular pin tumbler. Keymark is also a regular pin tumbler only it always has those contorted keyways right?
What's with medeco Air?
When people talk of medecos they usually mean the axially rotating ones, so I thought for a long time they only make those. I'm still confused about what they make and their homepage is not really helpful..

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 12:12 pm
by xeo
Nice work... I see you like to pick CCW, ever try CW?

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:06 pm
by Squelchtone
ARF-GEF wrote:
Secondly Medecos got me confused...
Not all medecos are axially rotating right?
Which ones are rotating and which ones aren't'?
What's the difference between m3 and biaxial?
I know medeco bilevel is just a regular pin tumbler. Keymark is also a regular pin tumbler only it always has those contorted keyways right?
What's with medeco Air?
When people talk of medecos they usually mean the axially rotating ones, so I thought for a long time they only make those. I'm still confused about what they make and their homepage is not really helpful..


quick history of medeco, some dates are rough dates, forgiveness asked since I'm writing this from memory

1968-1969 Medeco company is started with Air, Military/Dept of Defense and Sky keyways. They are numbered 00, 02, and 04, and are also Called Level 1 and Level 2 for the Air and Sky. The pins lift and twist in order for the lock to open. Medeco Original would include Air, Military/DoD, and Sky keyways.

1972- a patent is filed for an medeco pick which uses piano wire to move the pins to the correct angles. There was also an electonic pick that raked the pins to the correct angles, I dont know if Lock Technologies made it or a couple guys from New York, you'll have to google that story. Medeco responds by milling the gates in their key pins instead of broaching them. This makes it impossible to use a Medecoder style tool, but the knowledge is lost to time, and by the 1980's Medeco returns to using broached pins with fully open key pin gates.

1985 - Medeco BiAxial comes out to renew the patent and add more master keying differs for very large systems. At first I thought bi-axial meant axial rotation, but it does not, the Original Medeco pins rotated as well. Biaxial refers to the fact that each key cut can have a BeFORE center cut or an AFTer center cut (they also have Left Center and Right for each of these. Imagine that, 2 key cuts in one position! many more keying possibilities suddenly become available.

Somewhere during this time Medeco makes cam locks and T-handle vending locks. They are a driver-less system with a spring pushing directly against the key pin. the key pins have to lift up AND twist axially in order for the sidebar pins to be able to insert into the holes drilled into the pins.

1990 - Medeco responds to John Falle's decoder tool and includes ringed bottom pins to stop a wire tool from reading stack heights.

1993 - Medeco ARX system comes out for the US DoD and other high security locations. It is more of a way of pinning cylinders up in order to confuse an attacker than an improvement in technology. ARX stood for Attack Resistance eXtended. It used steel anti drill pin inserts, serrated pins, ringed pins, blind faced cylinders with no Medeco logo, and a way of randomly pinning these features in cylinders so if an attacker took apart one lock they could not figure out the security features in the other locks around the facility.

2000's Medeco M3 comes out in order to extend the patent. Pins still lift and rotate, it's pretty much a Biaxial, but now the side of the keyblade also has a notch and it pushes a slider element forward in order to unlock the sidebar and allow it to fall into the gates on the key pins.
BiLevel comes out as a cheaper alternative for low-security interior doors and pins only need to lift but not rotate, and the BiLevel also uses the slider to unlock a modified sidebar, which does not have fingers on it (from what I remember) The key pins are normal key pins like a Schlage or Kwikset. It also costs less because there is no drill protection.

MVP line comes out for electronic cam lock switches for use in machines like CoinStar. Provides good pick resistance and key copy protection, but has lower price because it does not include drill protection.

Medeco M3 cam locks and t-handle cylinders are also available.

Keymark is something I believe Medeco came out with but they have dropped it now, and Yale Keymark is being marketed by ASSA Abloy the parent company of both Yale and Medeco. Keymark has spool pins, difficult keyway, and only up and down, no rotation. It is not unusual for a company like ASSA Abloy to share technologies from one child company to another.

I believe this to be pretty accurate, some exact dates may be off, so I welcome any corrections.

Thanks
Squelchtone

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 2:05 pm
by rerun12
wow great read, thanks squelchtone

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 2:42 pm
by jeffmoss26
Keymark is very much still around. It's now called Medeco X4.
http://www.medeco.com/en/site/medeco/Te ... tId=912721

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 3:32 pm
by Squelchtone
jeffmoss26 wrote:Keymark is very much still around. It's now called Medeco X4.
http://www.medeco.com/en/site/medeco/Te ... tId=912721


see, Im learning new things every day, thank you jeffmoss26!

I also wanted to talk about 51s. Many people guy a Medeco lock on ebay and it will have 51s stamped on the face. I so wish that they had not done that because now we have many many people thinking that 51s is the model number. 51s, 32s, 64s, etc are designations UL (Underwriters Laboratories) gave Medeco mortise, cam, rim, and padlock cylinders after they passed the UL437 which qualify them to be a high security lock.

Also, there's no such thing as a Medeco Air padlock, you may however have a Medeco brass body padlock which can accept a Medeco Original cylinder with the Air keyway profile.

Squelchtone

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2013 4:52 pm
by Oldfast
DAMN GOOD to see ya back around Eli :D Welcome home.

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 3:25 am
by ARF-GEF
Thanks for the fantastic post Squelchtone! It was a great read, very informative.
It really cleared the mess in my head.

There is just 2 points I'm not clear about:

each key cut can have a BeFORE center cut or an AFTer center cut

I don't really understand what that means.
Does that mean that the pin meets the slide (side of the peakes) instead of the bottom of the valley so to speak? So it's not teh bottom of the "valley" which "raisees the pin" but the side of the cuts?


Are ringed pins the same as serrated pins? Like this: :serkeypin: & :serrated:

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:48 am
by GWiens2001
ST is referring to the chisel shaped point of the key pins, which can be located in either of two places on the pin. The chisel points are not centered in a BiAxial. They can be closer the key bow (fore as in beFORE the center of the pin) or closer to the key tip (aft as in AFTer the center of the pin). They can be left, center or right rotation.

ST is quite the expert on Medeco locks. When I have had questions about Medeco, he always knows the answer.

Gordon

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 8:00 am
by ARF-GEF
I knew he knew them really well but such detailed explanation exceeded my wildest expectations.
Once again thanks.
Ah so while normally the pins have one pointy tip, biaxials have key pins with tips slightly to the left and to the right(?) So the key pins can't turn all 360°around right?

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 8:09 am
by Squelchtone
ARF-GEF wrote:Thanks for the fantastic post Squelchtone! It was a great read, very informative.
It really cleared the mess in my head.

There is just 2 points I'm not clear about:

each key cut can have a BeFORE center cut or an AFTer center cut

I don't really understand what that means.
Does that mean that the pin meets the slide (side of the peakes) instead of the bottom of the valley so to speak? So it's not teh bottom of the "valley" which "raisees the pin" but the side of the cuts?


Are ringed pins the same as serrated pins? Like this: :serkeypin: & :serrated:



Here are some ringed pins, the rings are not meant as anti pick protection, just stack height decoding protection:

Image

Medeco original and biaxial both have limit stop tabs located in at the top of the key pins, they ride in a channel which allows them -20 to +20 rotation. Original pins will not work in a Biaxial plug because the limit stop tab location was moved 90 degrees.

Here's a cutaway MitchCapper from SecuritySnobs made of a Medeco Biaxial, the rotation limit stops are visible, and on the opposite side of them, the pink paint is the true gates in the pins which all point to the sidebar fingers, you can even see the sidebar fingers/legs inserted into the gates.

Image


Greetz,
Squelchtone

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 12:17 pm
by ARF-GEF
Thank you again Squelchtone!
This is one of the best threads I've read lately!
That one picture really tells a lot about biaxials.

I'm a bit ashamed to ask another question, I'm sorry if you find it cumbersome. This is just a brand I know (or thanks to you used to know) near to nothing.
So the question is A.) how are the rings protecting against decoding?
B.) Why don't they protect against picking? Don't they function as a really deep serration?

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 2:05 pm
by easy-e
That is a damn sexy cutaway. Lots of great information in here. Thanks Squelchtone!

Re: medeco madness

PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 6:59 pm
by the picker
thanks xeo i have only once picked cw and then i found your post on ccw and that was it for me :D and thanks for all the info Squelchtone alot of good info hear.And im very glad to be back mike very glad :mrgreen: