Security lock keeps musicians on the move
A
Camlock Systems product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Feb 22, 2000
A butterfly catch, fitted with a custom designed flat key camlock incorporating a stainless steel cam, is providing security in the music business.
A butterfly catch, fitted with a custom designed flat key camlock incorporating a stainless steel cam, has provided a simple, low cost solution to the security and on-site location of high value musical instruments for the world's top pop and rock musicians, including the Lighthouse Family, Dire Straits and Tina Turner.
Originally designed by Sidlock, the specialist manufacturer and distributor of industrial security locking devices, the lock is based on the company's C600 Miniature Camlock series, re-engineered to fit in a confined space on special flight cases used to transport and configure equipment at gigs and recording sessions all around the world.
Performance demands on these cases, and their locks, are formidable.
They are in continuous use, either in transit or onstage, as they often form the housings of equipment and employ the catches and locks to locate and secure the cases in special stage racking.
Either way the cases are opened and locked many thousands of times creating the requirement for a catch and lock with ease of use, exceptional durability, reliability and a measure of security.
Closure and security is provided by a 180ø turn/pull-up lever action and the camlock prevents this from being deployed.
To minimise damage in transit the catch is designed to fit into a shallow recess.
This requires the locking cam to be only 20mm long and 6mm wide, 'joggled' (offset) and mounted onto a lock body just 8.3mm in length.
As space is so tight a speed clip is used to retain the lock in the catch mounting but this has the added advantage of quicker assembly of the parts during production.
At product development stage engineering evaluations revealed that the smaller - 25% on length and 50% on width - cam dimensions necessitated a stronger material than the usual carbon steel used and so stainless was chosen.
Additionally, the confined space meant that the usual nut fastener could not be used to retain the cam and so it was spin welded onto the lock body.
Essential to the success of the product was the manufacturer's ability to adapt and modify an existing product to provide a fast solution and meet stringent cost parameters.
The camlock is supplied to Penn Fabrication - a specialist manufacturer of case and speaker hardware, materials and accessories, lighting, racking systems and stage box systems - who adds it to a range of 19mm and 10mm butterfly catches.
Other suppliers subsequently convert many of the company's cases to enclose and transport a variety of equipment including control, process and analysis instrumentation as well as photographic gear.
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