Adam Savage Lockpicks Open This Tachograph! 

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Thanks for the kind words about my channel and for sharing the retro tachograph… very cool tech! It’s amazing how much time, money, and ingenuity went into functionality that could be quickly tacked on as an afterthought to a modern automotive ECU. 🤯

It made me so happy when Adam did his Lockpicking Lawyer impression. I'm a LL fan as well as a Tested/Savage fan and the crossover gave me such joy. Adam is the best.

You turned and demo’d the internal mech with a screw driver, but I was just waiting for you to use an electric screw driver to turn it at speed so we could see everything in action! You have to make a part two and show it working. It probably would run the light and recording pins as well.

This brings back memories of my early trucking days. In the 90s, our company monitored our speed with a similar tachometer. With a magnifying glass, they could tell how we drove, including hard-braking events and speeding. If you knew where to stick a magnet or a toothpick, you could "hide" your real top speed 😁😉

Adam, one of the markers for the paper markes the paper disc to tell the person who monitors the techograph or the trooper if the box has been opened by the driver to cheat the system. Also the trooper will mark the disk to say that he has opened it for inspection or to check if the driver was actually speeding and conferm the troopers radar or odomiter in writing the ticket.

I have no doubt, Adam, that if the Cave was 20,000 square ft, you'd still manage to fill it with artifacts :)

I also love LPL's channel. I can't even explain why. I'm not a lock picker. I don't want to pick locks. But the guy is such a master at his craft that I religiously watch his videos. Same reason I watch tested I suppose. Would love to see that collaboration!

I too really appreciate the mechanical design and how they developed that solution. Mechanical clocks that track the phase of the moon work for years where the software equivalent stops functioning when the API gateway to get the moon phase shuts down or changes.

When I was in the Finnish army, there were still a few mechanical map loggers around in old trucks. They would have a map with a specific scale inserted into them, and they would take in the speed and compass heading and they’d plot the location of the truck on said map. Amazing!

I worked as a night watchman where I had to carry one of those watch clocks. It was a shipyard and it took 45 mins to walk the entire route. The route had to be walked every hour. Which meant you had to be continuously walking the entire 8 hour shift with a 15 min break each hour. This was in Florida in the summer where at night the temperature never drops below 80. The "break" consisted of a plywood shack that was up on stilts, no AC and only a single bare light bulb that attracted a horde of flying bugs. And that F'n clock was heavy! I lasted about a month.

We used to have tachographs on our patrol cars at work. They kept up with speed, down time, blue light operation, and braking. We referred to them as the "Silent Sergeant" in our trunk.

I would love for Adam's cave to be 3D scanned and be a game map or like a place where you can build a weapon in a game like Fallout.

it's amazing how things can be done with analog systems like this.

When I was a security guard decades ago (the things we do for cash when earning tuition) I used that second logger. For about eight weeks before It was replaced by another (still mechanical!) system where each security guard had a different key and the locations had the logging clocks. The second system was preferred because the stations were few and far apart (ie, walking a perimeter), because the portable loggers were expensive and prone to damage, and because the second system gave a direct record indexed by location instead requiring them to assemble a record indexed by location from a bunch of records indexed by individual guard. Evaluating coverage (when and how often each station was visited) was more important to their needs than evaluating discipline (whether each individual guard kept schedule). They only cared who had deviated from schedule if it resulted in a coverage problem.

The official name for these was a Wagner Sangamo Tachograph. They were commonly used in the United States in tractor-trailer rigs owned by fleet companies. They used a round chart and they recorded time of driving, and the speed the truck was going. I have one that came off of one of the tractor-trailer rigs that my father drove in the 60's and 70's.

The LEGO Typewriter chilling by the worktable at 6:41, lol... So Adam, much Savage.

I love the design of antique weather loggers. The barometer with a large stack of disks to have enough movement, large bimetallic thermometer, etc. Paper wraps around a large cylinder that has the clock mechanism inside to turn it. The various pens used are also cool, I've used one where you put a drop of ink in little pyramid shaped cups at the end of the arms, the tips touch the paper and write their lines for a week. When you change the paper on Sunday you put another drop of ink in each cup. Someone had to design those tips to be light, hold enough ink to write for a week, and also account for some of the ink evaporating over the week.

As a kid our school busses had those. I remember seeing the bus driver loading it with the paper disk inside.

Yes there are standard recording papers for these, with a pressure sensitive surface the pens move on to leave a mark. Kienzle is the most common type, you should be able to get packs of them on eBay for cheap, along with the tacho mechanisms themselves. There are more modern ones, which in addition record things like engine temperature, oil pressure and brake application, so that you can reconstruct incidents after the fact. I did get a few broken ones to take apart when I was young, as my father was in control of a fleet of around 300 trucks delivering stuff, so had stacks of these cards around. The more common types are used for process control, you need to look out for pneumatic controllers, where they use air pressure and almost no moving parts to control valves, using air jets blowing on steel plates to control massive industrial processes.

Of all the videos, I had to pick this one, and open it.

I always like it when my favorite channels collide, so cool to see the @lockpickinglawyer shout-out. About 40 years ago, I had a job as a security guard and would have to carry a clock and do rounds at a hospital. I think I had 2 hours to log 20+ keys, and I could usually get it done in an hour. Not a bad gig for a while, checking for locked doors, etc. Thanks for the memory.

LPL got me into Locksport, and most of what I know about it comes from him. I noticed once you start successfully picking locks, there's a popping bubble-wrap sort of satisfaction to it, and it becomes a little addictive. If you like collecting specialist tools, it's good for that too.

The red solenoid must respond to brake light voltage. It was probably not used in that truck, since the bung at the bottom of the case is still there.

I had a minor epiphany when Adam was talking about loss of institutional knowledge as technology advances. These intricate, resilient constructs fall by the wayside as we move to more advanced - and essentially disposable - technology. People talk about all the advanced tech we've discovered in ancient Greek and Roman territories, like batteries and electroplating rigs. This stuff fuels all sorts of conspiracy theories, including aliens, because how could we have created something so magnificent and then forgotten? Rather than extraterrestrials, isn't it more likely that we're finding their old, robust pieces that fell by the wayside - along with THEIR institutional knowledge of using them - as their society moved to better, more disposable tech that we can't find because it's faded to nothing, like an iPod in a landfill? And yes, people can say "what are the odds of that happening...?" Look at this tachograph Adam is looking at. In another 3-4 generations, how many people will be left to know what it is or how it works? That's one of our modern-day Greek batteries.

My dad was a lorry driver here in the uk and this video absolutely just unlocked a bunch of memories of seeing paper Tachos in his work gear and him signing them when i used to go to work with him when on break from school.

Thanks for the video, always enjoy watching!

I hope we can see this working! Thank you for another amazing video!

Even if LPL isn't your jam, I highly recommend his April Fools videos. They are hilarious works of poetry

So glad to hear Savage visited NZ. We love you guys down here and we’re so glad to welcome people here. Wish he got to see more of the country and people. The South Island is a must see. Absolutely beautiful ✌️❤️

I simply lost it to the lockpicking lawyer impression omgg hahaha I love adam SO MUCH and it never occured to me that lockpicking lawyer is such an adam thing to watch lol

I love this type of content. Would thoroughly enjoy a series of tested opening up their favourite or interesting things and seeing all what's there

One of the best Tested episodes I’ve seen! Thanks for sharing! 🙌🙌✨✨🧬🧬

You are awesome Mr Savage. Love watching everyone of these and all the vids you do

I love that Adam is a top tier RU-vidr but also geeks out over all the same creators that I'm subscribed to. It makes RU-vid feel like a community that we're all invested in.

Pretty awesome!! Great episode. Thanks Adam. Totally understand how much fun it is to geek over stuff like this.

That was a pretty good impression of the Lock-picking Lawyer!

I work as a security guard and now most companies have a smartphones that every patrol officer is required to carry. This lets us communicate, do daily reports, and file incident reports much easier. Most companies also use RFID stickers placed at locations you are visit. So you just tap the phone on the sticker and it checks off that you did your patrol. Its has pretty much replaced the old style clocks in service.

The older trucks on the ranch I work for have these old tachographs in them. The input shaft that drives the speedometer is driven off the engine RPM, and so they move based on RPM regardless of true speed. They are calibrated to be accurate in the top gear based on all the final drive ratios (in the case of my rig 13th speed with the rear ends in high range). Super cool to see a video on them, what a cool old piece of tech.

My dad used to drive Long-haul and had one of these in his truck. I spent the summer helping him move furniture and he had to change the paper disc every day. It was nice to see one again.

In the eighties, my dad had something very similar in his work car. It was by a european (I guess) brand (Kienzle) but I see a lot of similarities. He was not allowed to drive the car without a paper/disk, he was able/allowed himself to load in a new disk every morning (the little key was always on, but I have also seen the same device with a little handle nobbie instead of a key hole), but had to be able to show/hand in a disk for every day the car was moved. The disk had fields that could be written to with a normal pen for the date and begin/end odometer/trip counter. The disk would be used of proof of work, but also to prove that he had properly taken his breaks off of driving to rest. My guess would be that a second scribe on your device acted same like the second scribe on my dads: It would travel up and down slowly that short distance of a couple of milimeters for every 10 kilometers (if I remember correctly) so that the person reading the disk would be able to estimate or count the distance travelled more easily/precisely instead of having to judge/integrate speed over time drawn in a circle. Also, it would prevent to be able to move the car at slow speeds without being registered by the disk at all. Usually, opening or closing the device throughout the day would leave very visible "scratches" on the disk due to the paper being rustled, and I guess that was even on purpose, since it was meant to be a paper trail without any gap. I learned this the hard way, since my curiosity combined with boredom made me open it mid-day when I had to wait for him in the car once. However, I could very much imagine that this is what the third hand with the solenoid is for: If one were to open the device, it would open the contact of the pin in the lid with that insulated contact in the plate, the solenoid would jerk before even the pressure on the paper would release and probably leave a visible mark on the disk to make tampering evident.

13:34 The term "totally mechanical data logging" gave me goosebumps. I really like it. I was trying to think how you could mechanically govern this thing at the centrifugal speedometer mechanism... and then that term made me want to comment. Love this channel.

I started working for GM (Buick Motor Division specifically) in 1984 as an instrumentation tech. This was at the GM proving grounds in Milford Michigan. Shortly after I was hired Buick started installing Tachographs into all their durability test vehicles. The units we used were made by Argo. As part of this process I was sent to the US headquarters of Argo in Georgia to learn how to install and repair these devices. They record on a disk of pressure sensitive paper that was rotated by the clock assembly. Small pins would press against the paper leaving a fine dark line on the white paper. One disk of paper would record for 24 hours. Typically the speedo drove one writing pin on a large scale, and there would be one or two solenoids that could record digital inputs (brake switch, headlight switch, PTO engaged, clutch switch etc..) These digital signals would be on a very small scale. I beleive we purchased a different version or a modified version of what was used in commercial trucks and ours had different features and inputs. A trained inspector would place the disk in a magnifying station and "read" the disk. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachograph If you would like more info on how these work let me know.

Back in the early 90s after graduating high school, I went to Germany to connect with my German side of the family. My uncle worked as maintenance and mechanic in a factory that spun thread and made cloth. Some machines had a similar mechanical data logger. When some really old ones were retired, he gave me one which I still have, but it's in storage. He gave me some of the paper wheels too. Fortunately, he gave me a key to it. My granduncle was a truck driver and delivered industrial oil and other lubricants, including for steam locomotives. I would ride with him to see the country. I remember at the beginning of the day, he would pull down the speedometer of his Iveco truck, to put a paper wheel. That was also so fascinating to me.

I am a locksport person, and would love to hear more about your lockpicking experience

Love the Lockpicking Lawyer and his buddy Bosnian Bill. Hey, the US Navy had lots of these mechanical devices. The tracking board for subs and man overboard was an analog system running on gears that always amazed me.

I visisted NZ in 1989--went all over both islands. I think I left a goodly part of my heart and soul there. Such and amazing place.

I used to drive a 1976 Harvester International and it had this exact device installed! Fun memory! The clock never worked during my time and I dont recall the light coming on. Fun thing was that the bus had vacuum brakes and if you pressed the brake too much (thereby losing vacuum pressure) a little plastic stop sign would drop down from behind the rear view mirror and a buzzer would buzz, letting the driver know of the loss of pressure. Also fun, the bus was a stick shift. I still kinda miss it! 😝

it could be a very simple G force sensor, so if you braked really hard or hit something it would be recorded on the tacho.

I am a boiler operator at a paper mill in Tacoma, WA. When the mill is not running, we are required to make "fire watch rounds", and we have a very old security data logger similar to the one in this video. We ran out of recording paper and found we could no longer order it, so we contacted the manufacturer directly. They offered to purchase or clock for their museum!

the bottom marker is operated by the solenoid when the driver turns the switch in the cab to say when he is working or resting

At the University of Louisville Physics department, I used to be in charge of changing the strip chart, filling the inkwell, and winding the clock of a strip-chart barograph, registering atmospheric pressure. Alongside the barograph, in its display case, was a yellowed strip chart showing the severe dip in pressure as the April 3, 1974 tornado "Super Outbreak" hit the city, an event I remember, but which happened when I was only five years old. I hope it's still there.

One of my favorite types of mechanical data loggers are the pressure chart recorders designed for use at natural gas wells and pipelines. They also have a circular paper sheet, with pretty curved grid lines to line up with the circular arcs the pens sweep out.

Dad drove for Ruan Transport in the 1960s and '70s. Their trucks were equipped with a tachograph. It was used to keep track of miles and time of their travels. An automatic log book of sorts, but the driver still had to keep the paper log book as well. The units in the trucks Dad drove looked exactly the same as the one Adam has here.

Lock picking lawyer is great! Always awesome to watch some one work at the top of their field! (Why I also watch Adam)

To see you fizzing over Caleb and his workshop is hilarious and surreal for me, being from Wellington, knowing Caleb. If you haven't already, I'm sure he'd be happy to talk for hours about his new train.

i used to work for an automotive instrument company, and while i was there i had to actually pick one of these tachographs for a customer because they didnt have a key, it was my first experience of lock picking, i had read and watched enough videos on youtube, so i went down the back, used our bench grinder/sander to turn 2 old hacksaw blades into a pick and a leverage bar and went to town. good memories

Thirty years ago I drove a school bus in So. Cal., and some of the busses were still ancient old Crown Coaches and Gilligs from the '50s and '60s that used Tach-o-graphs for the speedometer.

Lol LPL and Adam. Oh boy. That'd be great!

In the early 1980's, the security company that we used at my zoo job used a Detex machine. Inside is a paper disk that lined up with the clock time on the machine. At each station was a key that had a letter/number that embossed the paper disk when it was inserted into the machine and turned at the time that the check station was visited by the guard. The paper was read every morning and it was very clear of a station had been missed.

I delivered newspapers from the printing press to the carriers in a big box truck for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and the Sacramento Bee in the early '80s. I had to turn in that little disk of paper at the end of every shift. It indeed tracked speed over time. The disk had a line on it indicating your max allowed speed. Heaven forbid if yours went over the line. It was also used to track breaks. We had to take our required breaks but they couldn't go long or again, you had to talk to the man. Thanks Adam!

I used to work in a power plant that was built in the 1950s. The control rooms had walls of paper disk loggers for various monitors. At the end of a year they would then painstakingly transcribe and condense that data into record books. For example, if you wanted to see historical coal usage, you could look at how many tons a unit used per day all the way back to the start of the unit's operation.

That you were at weta around the time I was makes me happy. So close to bumping into you!

My dad was a truck driver for most of his life he had this in hid trucks and i have seen and looked at and been explained how to read the circle log!! 1 is speed &engine RPM.. the second ie over speed limit..and 3 is time driven./time stoped

When I was doing locomotive maintenance about 8 years ago, we still had some trains using strip chart data recorders! We would have to change out the roll during services. The ones we used in Australia were made by Hasler. Also, I'm slightly disappointed there was no "...and we got this open! Let's do that again so you can see it was not a fluke..."

Thanks for a great video - I've never seen a tachograph before. Also thank you for introducing me to a new channel. LockPickingLawyer is amazing and I have so many vids to catch up on. I'm excited to see what collaborations you get up to. Cheers!

I love this kind of practical engineering!

Looks like it did its job for 483,967 miles. So well engineered,

Learning about these, and the way that they used to track high tides, helped me understand sine waves more than any math class I've ever had.

A truly magical video.

As a guy who has worked security for many years, I have always been fascinated by the old Night Watchmen's time clocks and rounds stations. Such an interesting device to do such a seemingly simple thing as account for someone being at a particular spot at a particular time. I absolutely love the old tech, and I too have several examples of it, locked with a key, that my own lock picking skills are not up to opening. This video gave me hope that maybe...one day....

That was very cool! "Retro" tech is always awesome because of the skill and though that went into it.

AH! the Detex Watchclock! When I was in college (mid 1960s) I worked one of summer as the night shift maintenance person at a medium sized local hospital. Electrician, electronics tech, plumber, mechanic, all in one. AND I carried a watchclock and made rounds several times per night! (they took advantage of the fact that I was only 18 even though I could do all those things) BUT that watchclock was not meant to be carried by a lad with tools! The clock ran continuously and each station had a different key chained to a small wall tray. I would bend a chain link and collect all the keys on my first round, then use each key at the proper time for the rest of the night while sitting at my bench. When it was time for the last round I would return each key to the proper wall station! This weakness of the system was why they were eventually replaced by a logger at each station to record a watchmans key.

Back in 1975, we had to use the tachograph when driving trucks in truck driving school. It was to keep us honest about how far we went and how fast we got there. The school, Dakota County Vocational-Technical school. Probably used the data to check the accuracy of our Log Books. They also had to support the use of un-taxed fuel for the state and federal authorities.

I am so pleased Adam not only knows about LPL, but he loves him and done an impression haha, my life feels complete!

Mechanical systems like this are so amazing, it's an art, like wristwatches. Old jukeboxes, the mechanics in that and how it records your selection and whatnot are mind-blowing. The channel Technology Connections has many great videos about things like this

For a while i was working in a Zinc mill that was built in the late 1920's, some of the old equipement that was retired but still in place had multitude of analog dataloggers on them so the operators could keep track of everything. That old equipment was fascinating to me, the craft and aesthetic design are something else!

Tachograph measure speed, distance and motion. To check when the driver is stationary

There was your opportunity to say (LPL) "A little click out of 1, slight rotation, a click out of 2, and a click out of 3... and we have this open... Folks, it is obvious that the manufacturer didn't put much attention to security with their locks, let me open it again to show you that it wasn't a fluke..." Nah... you did a lot more, you gave us a a reverse engineering and a history lesson. I think the other thing with the electromagnet marker was to mark the paper with the "over speed" possibly with red ink. Anyway, I like the old tech as well, and with much respect for their engineering genus... (LPL) that's all I have for you.... thanks for watching and as always have a good day.

I carried one of those in the mid 70's while serving aboard the USS Dixon as a weapon tech. I would visit the ships magazines during my 4 hour watch and each key had a number embossed on it that would leave a numbered ink mark on the paper. This kept sailors from using a single key and gun deck his duties. Aaahhh the days of roaming the ship at 2 A.M.

The Wiki for Tachograph has a lovely picture of the cards they used.

Similar data loggers were used on American railroad locomotives. They are called, "Event Recorders." They recorded time, speed, and brake applications. Event recorders are still used; however, they are electronic now. The railroad version of an aircraft's "black box."

tachos usually have a marker for 1:time, 2: activity, &3:speed. the disk of paper is good for 24 hours. dont see the activity switch anywhere so im a bit curious about the third pin.

Adam, you rock man.

You got the impression down perfectly 👍

My guess for the unidentified arm, given that this was on a truck could be a sort of 'accelerometer', like if the driver hit a curb and damaged or 'could have' damaged cargo. This was awesome by the way! I've always loved mechanical things, unlike solid state you can actually figure out and even watch it working without just seeing numbers on a display. They're so intricate and often well made like this, so satisfying when it all moves so smoothly!

Very interesting things Tachographs. My father was a London Metropolitan Police traffic officer for 30+ years. One of his duties was reading tachometers after the vehicle it was attached too was either in an accident or say pulled over for speeding. They can tell you when you started your journey and where from and even which turns and stops you had to make. They could tell if you'd been speeding at say 50mph in a 40mph zone and so on. Very clever gizmos.

a friend of mine use to drive semis for USPS and USPS had Tachographs in the trucks. He said when he got to his detonation the supervisor would collect the paper record disk from the trucks. He said it recorded speed and engine rpm and laps time. The purpose was to insure drivers did not abuse the manual shift trucks.

In 1973,...when I was exploring an old fashioned junkyard, in Athens, Ohio, while I was attending Ohio University, seeking my degree in sculpture, I found a tachograph, mounted into a cut-apart, drivers compartment, of a truck. I extracted it and used it as decoration in my apartment. A year or 2 later I repainted it in 1950s era colors, with enamel paint. The body was a light green, and the raised ribs in a dark green. I never opened it up, and eventually used the whole tachograph, in one of my found object sculptures. My sculpture was made of assembled parts from a 1950s car's speedometer, and some other car trim parts, I also had a collage of images on paper that came from some old magazines, with colorful pictures of the 50s cars. My whole sculpture when complete was about 3 foot wide by 2 foot tall. I displayed it in various art exhibits I was in during the early 1980s, and eventually one of the galleries I had been in, bought my sculpture. I saw it for years, on display in their gallery. Much later on, they sold it to one of their patrons. I had no idea what went on inside of the tachograph. I kept it intact, and just fitted it into my assemblage of other car parts.

Excellent! I have one in my shed, different colour but same brand I believe.

These usually go in trucks, not trains. It's mostly used to log if a driver has been driving too long without their required rest time. I remember watching my bus driver in Australia changing the disks behind the instrument cluster back in 2005.

Hah! I recognized the Detex machine immediately! I used to lug that thing around on my rounds. I'm sure if you called a security company and asked of they had any spare detex keys they might be able to help you. Not sure of they're still around. Possibly, as they do not require power, or today's tech. I remember the keys hung in little cases on the wall. Each one was slightly different to ensure you weren't standing in one spot 'doing your rounds' lol. Didn't find that out until I became a site supervisor lol. Thank you for the trip down memory lane, and for learning something new (tachograph) And yes, The Lockpicking Lawyer is awesome!

When I was younger, in school, a person from the local toxic waste dump described these things. They tried to monitor the drivers' safe driving habits. The paper would show the speed, and braking of the driver. If he had a high speed and lots of braking at the same time, that meant that he was tailgating other people on the highway. If there were too many brake indications at the high speed section, then they would get warnings and eventually get fired.

I can't wait to see what you and LPL do together. Part of me hopes he comes to your shop, a whole video of you emoting with your hands across the table from his hands sounds hilarious.

This type of engineering is beautifully designed, created, and operated. Magnificent to look at

Ah the Tachograph the bane of my dad and many many other old school truck drivers. Also more well known as the “Tattle tale”. The data kept as quoted by my dad was Drive time, distance driven, number of times “over speed”, and how long you were “speeding”. The data could and would be checked against your drive time self kept logbook. The data was collected by and punishment were all dealt out by the “dock boss” or company owners.

Awesome sir.

Mr. Savage, as a fellow lock picking enthusiast I wanted to mention a device called a Lishi pick as it bridges the worlds of lock picking and data logging. It is a remarkable device that of you are not familiar with I'm sure you will love. It could also help you circumvent your locks that lack keys for your mechanical devices. I would love to watch you design one as the precision machining is right in your wheelhouse.

"100 years ago" Yup, they had these (a more archaic form) on old electric/steam/gas trucks. If you look up in old magazines from the times of the Chase automobile, they have various ads for combinations variants of speed and distance. Witness logging was a thing since the dawn of the automobile.

There is no phrase I have heard from Adam that fills me with more joy and fear simultaneously than "I can't get inside... yet!"