Rimowa tsa006 too small

[macst34]

My wife doesn't know how to operate her luggage and decided to spin the number wheels and set a new code.

I printed out the current stl on my prusa using PLA and also on a DLP resin printer.

I found that the key was too small.

I know my wife is going to pull the same stunt again, so I am committed to drafting a working key.

I believe if I scale the current key, it should have a good chance of opening the lock.

Enclosed are rudimentary pictures of the keyway.

-m

[MS3FGX]

Interesting to get a lead on the elusive 006, but honestly can't do much with these pictures. We really need the numbers from a decent set of calipers to do anything with accuracy.

Since I'm guessing that's not something you have access to, it would probably be more effective if you can take a closeup of the printed key lined up with the opening, that way we could at least make an estimate visually on what the difference is.

Off the top of your head, how much bigger do you think it needs to be? A lot, a little?

[macst34]

Hiya MS3FGX,

The initial pictures are just because my cell phone and tape measure are what I had on hand. I do have some manual calipers at the lab and I will get some measurements for you. The external keyway should be easy to measure, though depth is probably more difficult to determine because of the gate pattern at the bottom of the key that I am assuming is reflected in the lock.

In any case, the luggage boarded a plane for trip to halfway around the world. It and my spouse are coming back in about 2 weeks.

To answer your question: Just eyeballing it dimensions of the keyway, it seems to be ~2mm(x) and ~6.5mm(y):

The printed key was too thin in the x dimension by ~0.4mm and too short in the y dimension by ~2mm, so I am guessing a scale up of ~30% is needed.

Interesting thing from peering inside the keyway and actuating the pins a bit , it seems there are only pins on the top row of the lock. This means only top part of the key is needed. I don't know if all TSA006 keyways are like this or if the lock that I got was just a cost down model. It does make sense since using the top of the key should engage 4 pins on the "left" side and 3 pins on the "right" side. This would be 7 pins for this lock instead of 14 pins if all the dimples on the key were populated. A 14 pin lock might be a little overkill for a luggage level theft deterrent.

(Only the green dimples on both sides are used.)

take it easy,

-m

[johnnyxmas]

This is good info. If you can get some precise measurements, I can push a beta key to my repo here:

https://github.com/johnnyxmas/TSA-Travel-Sentry-master-keys/blob/master/TSA006_stubby.stl

The 006 I have in there now seems like the width might be correct, but not the height. You're welcome to print it out and try.

More interesting is the row of pins. If what you say is true (I understand it's just speculation), I'd look into adding the rows of 4 dimples on each side of the top of the key, at the very least making a potential rake out of it.

[macst34]

Hi Johnnyxmas,

As I said before, the luggage is still traveling and will be back in a little while. I'll be able to give better measurements of the keyway then. I did print out the xyl2k_stubby_006 stl and my comments above reflect my initial experiences with it.

Your stubby006 stl fork seems to be the same exact dimensions as xyl3k's. So without scaling up a bit there's no real reason to print and test yours also.

The pin layout is not so much speculation, as much as a cursory inspection. I could not identify any pins for the lower half of the keyway. As such, a minimized bump key should only need 7 dimples, but can only be inserted one way. If you are going to go though the trouble of making a bump key, why not just do all 14 dimples so it can be symmetrical? Then you could use it by feel when you have to bump luggage locks in the dark... :)

But why make a bump key at all? TSA locks of the same type should never be keyed differently. i.e. when you have a TSA key, you have the key to open all TSA locks of the same type. Bumping need not apply.

I'll come back with some numbers or a solution when the wife gets back.

-m

[johnnyxmas]

Sorry, Q3 & Q4 are nuts in my profession, so I haven't been in the repos in a few months. I'll get back to it soon as a few of us are putting a panel together for the Hope conference in NYC next summer. I was talking about raking, not a bump key. I can't imagine even ABS keys would hold up well for bumping. I imagine

[macst34]

Heya Johnnyxmas,

Hope your job lets up soon. after all, the holidays are almost upon us.

Raking is still along the same lines...why rake if we already have pin placement and depth? A rake (or alternatively, a bump key) would only be useful if the locks are keyed differently. As we know, all the locks for a particular key type are keyed the same. So I am not sure when you expect to run into a case where you have the same keyway but not the same pins.

The tolerances on the Rimowa lock seem more than adequate for a luggage level theft deterrent. If you didn't know the dimple depths, I think it might be not all that easy to rake...though I haven't tried.

-m

[johnnyxmas]

So Nite0wl dumped some 006 locks and we're pretty sure there's only 2 actual pin depths for the dimples, and the diameters likely don't matter, probably because only one bit is used to drill both (dimple gets wider as the beveled bit drills deeper).

Unfortunately this is the limit of what my self-taught CAD skills can handle, especially with only STL files to work with. I've attached Nite0wl's measurements here, for anyone who wants to try their hand.

[johnnyxmas]

FYI new versions of 006 have been uploaded to my testing repo here: https://github.com/johnnyxmas/TSA-Travel-Sentry-master-keys