Lock designs

Henryunderborn · November 17, 2014, 5:17pm

Is there an organization that regulates every lock design throughout the world/select countries? How does that worK?

beowulff · November 17, 2014, 5:32pm

There’s no such organization. Why would you think there would be?

dolphinboy · November 17, 2014, 6:25pm

Companies are free to design, develop, produce and sell whatever locks they want. If you’re referring to the Government’s/law enforcement’s need to break into locks there are usually experts around who can figure out how to break into just about any lock someone can conceive.

Henryunderborn · November 17, 2014, 6:32pm

an episode of TV said that eventually lock designs would have to over lap, as he tried to use his apartment key, on a restaurant door lock.

Czarcasm · November 17, 2014, 6:35pm

An episode of what?

Ranger_Jeff · November 17, 2014, 7:08pm

I guess there’s some sort of industry wide standards for door knobs/locks so they match up with the holes door manufacturers put in doors for them.

Kiber · November 17, 2014, 7:24pm

I guess I’m the only one who thought of this type of lock instead. Not that the answer would be much different, I don’t think.

Amateur_Barbarian · November 17, 2014, 7:35pm

There are a lot of standardized fits to lock sets, so that most sets can be installed in standard doors. There are two or three common “setbacks” (distance from door edge to center of lock or knob hole) in the US, might be more in other countries.

But in general, locks are much the same size, shape, and use keys of high similarity because (1) you’re looking at over a hundred years of slowly optimizing the technology and it’s led various makers to the same efficient solutions. The same way there’s not really a lot of difference in, say, mid-size cars. And (2) a lot of the minor makers just aren’t seen or have long since gone out of business, leaving a huge number of lock designs based on Schlage and other long-dominant brands.

It’s very little surprise that a business key would fit an apartment lock, or at least be able to be inserted.

And (3) TV grossly simplifies things.

Drunky_Smurf · November 17, 2014, 8:33pm

Amateur_Barbarian:

There are a lot of standardized fits to lock sets, so that most sets can be installed in standard doors. There are two or three common “setbacks” (distance from door edge to center of lock or knob hole) in the US, might be more in other countries.

But in general, locks are much the same size, shape, and use keys of high similarity because (1) you’re looking at over a hundred years of slowly optimizing the technology and it’s led various makers to the same efficient solutions. The same way there’s not really a lot of difference in, say, mid-size cars. And (2) a lot of the minor makers just aren’t seen or have long since gone out of business, leaving a huge number of lock designs based on Schlage and other long-dominant brands.

It’s very little surprise that a business key would fit an apartment lock, or at least be able to be inserted.

And (3) TV grossly simplifies things.

Is this true for bike locks as well?

ftg · November 17, 2014, 9:21pm

In the US for home door locks, there are the ANSI Lock Security Standards.

The nature of the standards limits some choices in design if you want the cert.

For certain government uses, there are higher standards required. There are a lot of these standards. For military buildings, high security areas, rules for locking up things like drugs, guns, etc. Some of these specialized locks are also available to the general public.