The lock

The Lock

I must've been 11 years old or so when I decided that I needed a little more privacy, so naturally I devised a plan for restricting access to my room. So I pulled out all my toys, laid them on the floor and took bits and pieces that I thought could be useful then went through my grandfather's tools and did the same thing.

I took a sliding bolt and fastened it to the door, then drilled a hole in the door frame for it to slide into. I installed the bolt upside down so it would not catch in the grooves but slide freely back and forth, and it was also at a bit of an angle so gravity would help it slide shut.

Then I took a woodbit and drilled halfway through the door right next to the sliding bolt, luckily enough the bit created a hole just the right size for a small low profile DC motor which I took out of an old toy to fit snugly into. I hooked it up to a switch from a toy car I had taken apart. Then I tied a string to the gear on the motor, and ran a couple of wires through a hole in the door to the other side where I tapes an LED to the door, then wrote on a piece of paper the words "Access Denied" only backwards, then taped that over the LED with the text facing the LED. Then I ran a couple of wires up to the top of the door frame where I hammered in a couple of bendy metal things, I think they were those metal bindings for legal papers (My mom was a paralegal).

Back in my room now, I took off a cover that was over a hole in the wall that I can only assume was meant for a light switch... in there I put a battery case I tore out from a toy car I had, then I went back out into the kitchen (Other side of the door) I took the drill and made a hole in the back of the cabinet connecting with the hole behind the previously mentioned cover. I ran wires from the battery case through it, then I drilled another hole in the side of the cabinet which was right next to the door. After I drilled that hole, I took the wires and hooked them up to a circuit board from an old Atari Joystick I had taken apart, I stuck a lamp in the hole in the middle and hooked it up to a lining of aluminum foil at the bottom of the board, which would make connection with a nail that was hooked up to the battery case.

Next, I took the clips from the joystick cable and began rigging certain "buttons" to do certain things. I then drew up a keypad on paper, taped it up over the circuit board and ran the last two wires as inconspicuously as I could up the cabinet and over to some patches of tin foil which the bendy pieces of metal I mentioned earlier on the door would connect.

So after all was said and done, I had an electronic doorlock with a backlit digital keypad. Inside, with a switch, I controlled whether pressing the right button gave a person access to the room by completing the circuit to the motor which would pull the sliding bolt out of it's hole, or if it would complete the circuit with the LED which would shine red and allow people to read the backwards writing on the other side of the paper which would say "Access Denied". If people were to pass by there in the night and couldn't see the buttons, they needed only to push on the bottom part of the keypad and a light would go on in the middle of it, illuminating all the numbers.

One of the things I thought was the most slick about this is that the door circuitry was completely out of the loop until someone closed it and the bendy metal strips were making contact with the aluminum foil.

Amazingly I can't remember my mother or grandfather being angry at me for drilling holes in the walls, door and cabinets. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered that if it had happened. I can only assume they were not angry because they were impressed with that little accomplishment. I'm actually amazed I was able to retroengineer the electronic devices involved as well as I did.