A small 3D printed robot cracks lock combinations in less than a minute

You probably may have noticed that one of the most annoying things is an attempt to unlock some combination lock or suitcase when you realize that you’ve forgotten the code. You’ve already tried you birthday combination and four zeros and a one-two-three-four combination and what not. You always try dozens of various combinations and sometimes you mix them trying to find the right one, but it’s all in vain. Luckily we can always rely on 3D printing, even in such cases. Hacker Samy Kamkar has created a nice gadget, which you can use to crack various combinations in a couple of seconds. It is a 3D printed device based on Arduino. The creator explains that the device, in fact, doesn’t do any specific work, but it can open the lock automatically in 80 combinations. If you do one small test, it will open the lock in eight or fewer combinations.

Kamkar called his device the Combo Breaker. The gadget is powered by battery and entirely 3D printed. It is designed to crack locks and it is very easy to use it. On his webpage Samy says that it’s not difficult at all to 3D print it as it is portable and open-source for everyone. Just image what you could do with it at high school.

The main question here is how you guess the combination. Samy has written a small but effective program, with which it’s easy to get the right combination. It works simply. Your task is to start looking for certain points of resistance pulling up the shackle as hard as possible. The software will use this to find out the most suitable combinations. Indeed, you can use it to crack any lock combination in less than eight attempts. The procedure is so simple that you might get interested why they use such lock so often.

If you intend to open old locks that you find everywhere around, you can try this handheld gadget to crack the code. This tool does everything that you would do with your hands, but it uses a system of 3D printed levers and pulleys and the Aurdino cracking software. This small but useful 3D printing project uses an Easy Driver and a Pancake Stepper Motor with which you can impress everybody around you.

If you have tried assembling and programming the parts before, it will be easy for you. But to make sure that everything goes smoothly, watch the video created by Samy and remember the process. The most challenging part is that with 3D printing. First you’ll have to get to know the lock and ensure your 3D printed levers are appropriate for this particular kind of lock. Samy himself measured the dial and lock carefully before he created each part. That’s what you should do too. By the way, this is a nice project that demonstrates the power of a conventional desktop 3D printer and some electronics and it is available on GitHub.

Samy confessed that he tries to develop things for common audience. Moreover, he hopes that this particular project will help people decide which lock to use.