Monday, September 8, 2014

Review: Strike Plate Lock

In a very cool piece of happenstance, I came across a Kickstarter project that was a direct upgrade to another item that I covered not too long ago. The Zazz QuickLock portable door lock which lets you convert a regular latch to a physically blocked lock, but was a pretty flimsy piece of security.

This hefty piece is somewhat less portable, but offers a significant security upgrade to any strike-plate equipped regular door with a knob, and attaches in minutes. This is the Strike Plate Lock.

The principle of the lock is to replace the existing strike plate with a hinged plate, attached to a heavy-duty chain and a ring, which loops over the door-knob, providing a frame-mounted, door-knob fixed physical restraint to your door.

The metal is 16 gauge 300 series stainless steel and 0.050" thick the ring is 2.5" inside round and 1/4" thick. It affixes to the frame using the existing strike plate screw-holes, and two long screws came along with it.


I used my multitool, undid the old screws and removed the old plate, and attached the new one in less than two minutes, and immediately bolstered the effectiveness of my front door.

I wondered how much the latch and facing would be exposed and whilst you can see both strike-plate, latch plate and the chain are visible, the door is only open a crack, and there is no easy bolt-cutter access to the chain, just a nice balistraria for me to fend off invading triffids and zombies.

The creator, Robert Dieguez, gave it a very thorough workout, in the video I pulled from his site, below:




I didn't want to put my (rental) houses' front door through this kind of test, so I'm glad that Robert did so with his testing-frame. I was pleased to note that the whole rig seemed to slide itself out of the way either due to good design, or just how my screws alignment shifted the center of balance, but when not in use, it folds out of the way, and when in-use, I have a very secure additional feature to home security.It was a fast, easy and unobtrusive addition, and appears to be outperforming other chains and door-bolts.

Go check out his Kickstarter,  the webpage and Facebook .

[EDIT] prototype proof video

7 comments:

  1. Unfortunately the tests in the video are clearly faked. Break 3 the lock is only fixed with thin wood and not screwed in at the stress point which makes it look worse than it actually is. The actual test of the product is also faked as there is no stress on the chain nor does it go to full extension and no bounce back, the door is clearly fixed in place out of frame. While the other products may be easily broken there is no excuse for faking a test.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Brett, I got this reply from the inventor, Robert:

      I am the inventor of the strikeplate lock, the video is real, the reason the door does not bounce back and forth is that the door is not in a house but somewhat free standing, the frame shifted after so many hits, this is seen when I tried to close the door to remove the lock, the door would not close because the frame was all tweaked out. I get the ring off the knob and the door swings wide open. I actually have a video test of the first prototype(this is the second prototype) it broke after thirty hits with the bag and the door flew open, it always broke at the same spot where the chain hooked to the plate, so we reinforced that spot on the final prototype. On this one we stopped after thirty one hits and nine kicks you can see the damage caused to the lock on the video. thank you Robert

      Delete
  2. Quick and easy bypass of this system? Have a screwdriver set.
    All the time spent hitting and kicking would have easily gotten the two screws out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the screws aren't exposed to the outside, with the gap between the open door and door jar being not wide enough to maneuver a screwdriver (when I tried) to open it. Maybe you'd have better luck, but it didn't seem feasible to me

      Delete
  3. You know, I love all these knee-jerks (heh) who just HAVE to throw subjective poo at everything. "Video is clearly faked" coming from someone with HOW much "knowledge" of reality? And if you seriously think a kick-in burglar is going to whoop out a damn screwdriver set and tinker with a strike plate instead of just going to another point of entry, you have your head an arm's length up your hind end. The dude invented something that beats the piss out of a regular door chain. What did YOU do? Look at a video, then spew unwarranted criticisms? Come on, man.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You have discussed an interesting topic that everybody should know. Very well explained with examples. I have found a similar websiteHome Safe visit the site to know more about Access Controls Melbourne.

    ReplyDelete

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