Time lock

A mechanical and an electronic timelock

A time lock (also timelock) is a part of a locking mechanism commonly found in bank vaults and other high-security containers. The time lock is a timer designed to prevent the opening of the safe or vault until it reaches the preset time, even if the correct lock combination(s) are known.

Time locks are mounted on the inside of a safe's or vault's door. Usually there are three time locks on a door. The first one to reach 0 will allow access in to the vault; the other two are for backup purposes.

Time locks were originally created to prevent criminals from kidnapping and torturing the person(s) who knows the combination, and then using the extracted information to later burgle the safe or vault, or to stop entry by authorized staff at unauthorized times.

Modern electronic time locks have some functions not available to mechanical time locks, like resettable timers and pre-set times to activate.

Further reading

• Erroll, John; Erroll, David. American Genius: Nineteenth Century Bank Locks and Time Locks. Quantuck Lane, 2006, ISBN 978-1-59372-016-2.

External links

• Bank Vault Anatomy - A semi-technical guide to bank vaults built in the early 1900s
• Bank Vault Time Lock Collection
• TMI Guide to Timelock Movements

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