I Bought a REAL SPRINGLOCK to solve FNAF 

Hey, so apparently I made a couple of mistakes with some of the lore-specifics and names I used in this video. Like I said, I'm a bit of a FNAF noob at the moment, but I'm stoked to learn more if you guys want FNAF engineering to be a regular thing on the channel moving forward! But just to summarize the big mistakes I made for anyone else who's not as familiar, Golden Freddy and Golden Bonnie are not canon names, they're just fan ones. They were also not the only 2 springlock suits, it's suggested that there were several scattered across different locations. I said that William Afton was the CEO of Freddy's, but he's actually the co-owner with a guy named Henry. Also, the Crying Child may or may not be canonically named Evan, you all seemed a bit split on that one but I thought I'd throw it in anyway! Everything I said about the springlocks and how they actually work, though, is still true! No matter how you slice it or what his job title is, William Afton is kind of an idiot!

People forget the Bite of '83 couldn't have been a failure because the suit was already in animatronic mode, meaning the locks are already active

7:25 Based on Phone Guy's calls in FNaF 3, they had springlock suits in multiple locations at once, so more than two suits were made. 13:50 In-universe, the reason for having these suits is to reduce inconsistencies between the animatronics and suited performers.

So what I’m getting from this is Afton learned about springs and decided they were the solution to every mechanical problem when better solutions exists.

All I know is that Crying Child's death was the result of too strong pistons to move a suit's head. I think people forgot the part where the only time the springlocks are ever a threat is when they're in suit mode, which Fredbear wasn't during this event. Considering this happened in the 80's, it kind of says how William thinks as a person. He probably thought he was smart using strong pistons and was either too blinded to see this sort of thing happening or just didn't care enough to reconsider. Considering the recordings for the springlock suits was "If they go off on you, go die quietly in a corner.", it was probably the latter.

Honestly you just destroyed Game Therory and like 30 other channels tryna figure out springlocks by just solving it in like 3 minuites you are amazing earned a sub and a like!

For those who don't know the lore, William Afton's death CAN NOT be the event that decommissions the springlock suits, because the suit were already banned from use long before that. no other complaints with the video though.

I'm so glad you showed off a real spring lock because now I can say for certain that even if william afton needed to have compression spring locks, this whole situation could have still been easily avoided. My fnaf history is a bit fuzzy, but I remember hearing that the spring locks were known to fail if wet, so that leads me to think they're a lot like the one you showed off. A pin being held in place with nothing but friction. If instead he used a bayonet socket style spring lock, he would still be very alive Also a few notes: you mentioned how the golden freddy suit wouldnt have any springs, but here's my rebuttal. If it's a piston jaw you can use tension springs to retract the jaw faster than gravity could on it's own. I'm not sure how good solenoids or other similar pistons were back in the time frame that scene takes place, but having a spring to retract the jaw actually makes sense. If it was a hinge jaw instead, you could have torsion springs near or inside of the hinge to retract it. On a side note, "When the beginning of the end grows near When he calls the road will begin For the sun to rise it must first set"

The size of springlock you got would be used for raising/lowering trailer ramps. Might have other applications but that's what I've seen firsthand. The ramp is held vertical and the springlocks are opened into holes on the edges, much like closing a door that latches into a hole in the wall.

One thing about the springlock suits is that the locks were probably added retroactively. The costumes came first, and then came the idea for automation, so Afton invented the endoskeleton as a thing to take a human's place - basically a thin humanoid robot. The endoskeletons were much "skinnier" than a human, so he placed a bunch of spring-lock holding systems in place, those probably consisting of thin metal rods which would be pulled back when locked, and then would slot themselves into holes on the endoskeleton when unlocked. The excess power could then be justified as a tool for precision and rigidity - to make the holes in the endo smaller, and for the entire structure to hold itself better. The retroactive addition theory kind of explains the inconsistencies and overall weirdness of the design, and the metal-rod holding systems explains how something like this could be lethal. This is mostly my headcanon, but I think this way of looking at it kind of explains the whole springlock failure shtick in a satisfying way

The only damage that could come from swapping “active positions” is the suit stopping and falling over

Imagine the springlock suit dropping dead on stage because the springlocks (using tension springs) came loose, that would be hilarious

Some of the lore related things he said here would set the community on fire.

Hey, great video! Very informative! Though if you’re gonna talk about the game series’ springlock suits, you can’t forget about a scene that I think is vital to the discussion: On the fourth night of the fifth game (not including the RPG in the lineup), the player is physically stuffed inside one of the springlock suits for the night. The springlocks slowly open up over time, so you have to keep them wound up. At the same time, a bunch of tiny animatronics clamber all over the suit, trying to get inside, and you have to shake the suit around to get them off before they can climb inside. Shaking the suit loosens up the springlocks more, so you have to balance both the tightening of the locks and the shaking of the suit. I bring this up because the springlocks in the suit don’t pull like the one you bought, they turn with a dial.

One thing about the story. While a springlock failure did happen to cause the suits to be decommissioned. It was not William Afton's "death". The event of fnaf 3 with Afton takes place, many years after springlocks suits were taken out of use. The springbonnie suit there was already abandoned and rotting inside of a backroom where it would be stored forever until Afton got in there and almost died. What probably happened that caused the whole suit decomisssioning was that a worker at Fredbear's died at the hands of a springlock failure during work hours and William put the suits out of use before another gruesome legal issue would show up. But that's just speculation.

13:20 Alternatively, if you're completely unwilling to have 2 suits, just design it so it's easy to take out the robot bits. Like have the robot bits be able to detach from a hollow chassis and then pull the robot out. Then when the human wears the suit, they're surrounded by harmless metal rings or something instead of pointy robot bits ready to impale you at any moment.

I always figured that having Suit mode be the default for springlocks would have made more sense, especially because then a failure would just make the animatronic collapse which is still scary to the kids but better than an adult dying painfully in front of them. It would also be like the animatronics are wind-up toys which is a cute image imo

I loved this! You should make more videos like this! After so many years of consuming the same style fnaf ‘theory’ videos, this was so refreshing. Taking a practical look at something in fnaf, loved it!

I always appreciate videos like this that look at the games from a different perspective. Great video!

I’m not a expert at mechanics but what I’m thinking is that when the springlooks are pulled back is wearable for humans and when the springlocks aren’t pulled back they connect to the endo skeleton but William added dangerous parts to the springlocks in the suits, this was proven in 9:59 inside the video to connect to the Endo skeleton more stronger so that the suit doesn’t fall off during a performance. But what I think happened that resulted to the Springlock failure is the locks weren’t pulled back enough and the drop of water, made the locks easier to move and while William was laughing he was moving to strong that it caused the locks to slip off from being pulled back causing the springlock failure.

I saw a fanmade VHS which had an extremely plausible explanation as to how the spring lock suits actually worked. The animatronic endoskeleton was a separate piece of equipment that would be removed to put the animatronic into suit mode, then there's the exoskeleton which has all of the spring locks and supports the weight of the rest of the components. The spring locks are dotted around the arms, legs, torso, and head, and are connected in sequence so when the crank is turned to wind one of them, it winds all of them in that segment. All they do is keep the exoskeleton locked to the endoskeleton. Over the exoskeleton is a fiberglass shell that gives the mascot its shape, and finally is the cloth cover which gives the animatronic its final look. The hands and feet don't have shells, the feet of the exoskeleton are just empty boxes, and the feet that go over them are built up with foam to give them their shape. As for the hands, they are simply gloves that can fit on either human hands or the endoskeleton hands. The head has its own spring locks not a part of the exoskeleton, and has flip down fake eyes that look almost identical to the endoskeleton's eyes. These fake eyes are able to be seen through from the inside of the suit, but not the outside. I get that the in lore reason why the spring lock suits existed was to mitigate the differences in appearance between the animatronics and performers... But was it really that expensive or difficult to just have the suits look like the animatronics? I know that it was the 80s, so they didn't have 3D printing, but if you want to see costumes that look almost exactly like an animatronic character, there's an amazing Glamrock Freddy cosplay that someone made, I don't remember who, and it looks exactly like Freddy did in the game.

The fnar 4 bite wasn't meant to be a springlock failure, it's just the jaw and it's pistons having way too much strength

is everyone gonna just ignore the edgy text appearing on the screen at 5:53?

Every time someone else actually shows about understanding of how springlock suits work I feel so validated (its frustrating how people misunderstand such a simple concept). I am not interested in engineering, and I look vaguely knew slronglocls were real, but even I understood exactly what Scott Cawthon was going for with the mechanisms behind the springlock suits, and how the bite in fnaf 4 couldn't be a springlock failure because the animayromic was in animayrinic mode. The springs were already sprung, and theere was nothing to snap into place because it was all already snapped into place. Thank you for this. I will note, that fnaf 3 cutscene can't be the springlock failure that decommissioned the suits, because it happens long after everything else. The only remaining possibility is that we never got to see it, and it happened to a random employee.

10:20 when you compare the 3d golden Freddy and 8 bit golden Freddy it is not the same suit, it is the same mascot but different iteration of suit like how Chuck E Cheese changes his suits every so often, the model seen in 8 bit is supposed to have a hydraulic mechanism I think, while the other one uses a regular hinge.

Dude... This is just awesome. I'm stuck between studying mechanical engineering and computer science at the moment, and the feasibility of things like this in FNaF is so cool to see. I would love to see or hear where the concept of Spring-Locks came from on Scott's part. They just sound dangerous. To most of the fanbase, it isn't much more than that. I always thought the idea of a bulky animatronic eating a kid so funny, because the actual metal mouth inside is the size of a rat trap, and the rest is all costume. Foxy or Mangles mouth would have to be at darn near a 180 degree angle to even get close enough for it to reach you. I think you'd be more at risk of suffocating from the fabric than you would of getting your skull cracked open. Somebody ought to do skits where the animatronics are about to get somebody, and then the jaw mechanism breaks on the kids head. Have you considered doing something on the legitimacy of star wars robots? I'd love to hear your thoughts on how the droids are able to move around in terrain that is so uneven. BB-8 for example is one of the worst designs you could think of for a robot that patrols on sand. a magnetic head with casters or something that would get clogged with sand pretty fast, and a body that would likely just push sand out from under itself and bury itself into a hole. Not to mention all the little gadgets that come out of panels on the body, meaning the body has some way of opening doors, as well as pushing arms out of its body that align with the ports. If I'm not mistaken, I believe it has also rolled with the arm rotating and staying upright. It'd be better to just store all that in the head, but then you'd run into problems with weight, and the calibration for balance and yadda yadda. tldr, Thanks for going over Spring-locks! As a computer and mechanics nerd, I love hearing the real explanations for how these things would work, even when it really isn't feasible and is left more to imagination than real world application. You've earned my subscription!

The suits weren't as complicated as you thought. The springlocks held back metal supports (much like the cylinder in your physical one, just not as thick) that would hold the suit to the endoskeleton (which is separate from the suit itself). The one that resulted in William's incident sent the metal supports into his body, physically trapping him in the suit.

I don't think the failure was either case shown here, since the death minigames take place sometime after the more conventional animatronics are a thing(they get disassembled in earlier games). It seems most likely that the first springlock fail, unless specifically mentioned elsewhere(very much a surface-level knowledge here too) was some background incident that lead in part to the closure of Fazbear's Family Diner(where the springlock suits were used). Something that didn't effect the plot other than help shut down the diner so that the pizzaria could take its place later on.

Aight so as a FNAF fan… imma fix some of the errors you made lore wise throughout the vid. So first off, Golden Freddy is not the actual name for the spring lock suit. The canon name is Fredbear, who is possessed by Cassidy, Afton’s 5th victim, and the Crying Child, and the canon name for the the bunny suit is Spring Bonnie. Second, William Afton is not the “main” owner of Freddy’s… he’s the co owner with the main owner being Henry Emily, the father of Afton’s first murder victim… Charlotte aka The Puppet and Henry is the one who also helped William with making the animatronics. Third, The Crying Child does have a canonical name, it just took us a very long time to figure out. The canonical name is Evan Afton All and all what a great analysis video

Unironically actually having a degree in mechanical engineering is real cool!

Fun fact: William afton is the co owner. So he didn't built FredBear, SpringBonnie and all Fazbear animatronic (well except the Funtime animatronic because it's made William). The person who built Fazbear animatronic is "Henry Emily" the Owner of FredBear and Freddy's

I love your video! But I think you forgot something: the Funtime animatronics are implied to ALSO be springlock suits, telling by night 4 of sister location in which you must wind up the springlocks while inside of a Funtime animatronic. This is also corroborated by the silver eyes graphic novel, in which Carlton Burke gets trapped inside of an unidentified blue springlock animatronic.

The Purple Guy's death can not be the reason for the suits getting retired because that scene takes place after Fnaf 1 and 2's events in the story, and in both Fnaf 1 and 2's time period the spring lock suits are still not being used even back then. So Purple Guy getting spring locked could not have caused the retirement of the spring lock suits due to where that event takes place in the Fnaf timeline.

5:54: hey, look, another secret message. I might get a word or three wrong, it is kind of jumbled. + Indicate purple words, - red words The +beginning+ of the - end- draws near, when he calls, the +(road?)+ will begin for the sun to +(rise?)+ it must first - set-

I’m just sayin, William Afton going into the Spring Bonnie suit to do… something? Is very much reminiscent of the low budget slasher movie trope of “oh no, the bad guy is chasing us! Quick! Hide in that old shed full of chainsaws! We’ll definitely be safe there!”

@16:52 the piston design was the older model after frd bears shut down they probably tried remodeling golden freddy.

There is actually canonically a 3rd springlock suit, but it goes unnamed. It appears in Night 4 of the 5th FNaF game, Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location

12:56 the compression spring locked suits are the exact reason William was not on Henry's level

Is anyone gonna talk about how underrated this guy is Anyways, im gonna talk about why purple guy became a killer but long: His 2 sons were in the pizzeria and the youngest, which was the birthday boy was scared of the animatronics. So the older son started making fun of him until he put his head closer to the mouth of fredbear while he was performing, his brain was crushed and he had to go to the hospital but he couldn’t recover and died. Purple guy was very mad and sad at the same time so he started taking revenge but on other kids

9:39 William jumps inside that suit because if he killed the kids with that suit on that means the souls will be scared and leave William alone. Yeah a leaking building, fast movement and heavy breathing is the perfect recipe for you drowning in your own blood(because the springs DON'T kill you but instead you drown in your own blood)

One example of spring locks that I think you should’ve mentioned is the suit you get trapped in in ( I think night 4 ) of sister location. Here you get to see the inside of one of the spring lock suits. However this is a different type of suit to the ones mentioned in this video, withe those in sister location never being intended to be used also for wearable costumes. Great video, keep up the good work 👍

I like how this guy doesn’t know the proper names for everybody

I think the springs are meant to hold the endoskeleton in place while its an animatronic. So that way the springs can be pulled back and locked so the endoskeleton can be removed and a person can wear the suit.

Mr. Afton was killed long after the spring lock suits were decommissioned and Freadbears closed down

William Afton was both a Genius and an Idiot XD

This was a very educational video! And about fnaf two thing that are a great mix! ❤

In the books William is shown to get spring locked and survived aswel as a phone guy forgot which game said it was due to multiple failures at multiple locations although i do fully agree with the crying child segment no way could that be a springlock related accident

13:43 I saw another video that said that a seperate animatronic and suit actually costed more than a springlock suit

I’m really surprised you got one of these, and I liked this video, hopefully I can get my hands on one so I can try some things with it.

I just realized this series is labeled as a podcast... WHAT?

7:17 - if I'm remembering this correctly, there's actually 3 confirmed springlock suits, if you include the thing Mike was trapped inside for one of the nights in sister location... I think

"this is a very industrial springlock, its used in... i have no idea" that deadass made my day

bro's an absolute chad for finally doing something reasonable for once

Actually William is co owner. The owner is Henry Emily.

for 6:23 I thought that you had a sort of shell of metal surrounding your limbs, head, and torso with spring locks all around it so when the endo skeleton is inside the suit, you can activate the spring locks to hold it in place. If you want a human to fit inside, you tighten back the spring locks and then take out the endo, to then climb into the surrounding metal frame and have the fabric costume be put back on. I thought this was more realistic on how its dangerous for the springlocks to activate as the only way they can go is into your head and body.

they're actually called fredbear and spring bonnie but they're names change later on in fnaf 1 2 and 3 6 and sb, golden freddy, withered fredbear, springtrap, scraptrap, and burntrap

Dang, you have good subsribe button punching form. You should teach a class how to do it so great.

Is Richard a real person? This is my new conspiracy theory 😈

10:35 the failure was either caused by his body moisture (him sweating from fear) or a single drop of water because water was dripping from the ceiling.

Phone Guy mentions multiple springlock failures at a sister restaurant in, I believe, 2. It's probably that incident that decommissioned the suits; 1983 Bite Victim's death just retired Fredbear and Spring Bonnie.

Good morning chiptide your loyal commenter for the algorithm here I hope my answer was satisfactory last week I do have a question this week On a scale of 1-10 how dangerous is Richard? This question is very important

The only springlock suits are Fredbear and Springbonnie,not Golden Freddy and Golden Bonnie!Golden Bonnie doesnt even exist!!!😠

12:38 the springlock failure would traumatize the kids for life as the animatronic would just drop to the ground

The springlocks in the game probably have long rods that slot into holes in the endo "bones" so that the endos don't slide around. Endos are much smaller than humans width-wise, so if the locks failed it would drive several inch long metal rods into the human and their skeleton.

I think this is the first time in years I've seen a child death warning on a fnaf video. Kinda refreshing, tbh! I tend to forget how genuinely fucked up this franchise is

his name is evan

At around 6:20 the gears and parts you were talking about is actually just an endo skeleton and when it's in "animatronic" mode, the spring locks lock the endo skeleton in place

I believe the spring lock held onto the animatronic parts while the suit was in costume mode, and when there’s a spring lock failure, the spring locks let go of the parts and the parts jolt foward, lunging into your body.

8:40 um.... he has a name. Its Even Afton

I don't actually think Mr. Afton was being dumb at all when he made the suits because if you were to look at it from a killers perspective, these suits would be the perfect way to kill someone on purpose, say it was an accident, and people you'd believe it was an accident so maybe William thaught about that and thaught "hm this could be a good way to get away with murder". He just probably forgot about this when he was getting chased by ghost children seeking revenge because lets be real, who has the ability to think logically when they are panicking and cornered in a room and can't escape because there are vengful ghist children blocking they way. Not William Afton

The dual functionality of suit and robot, is more cost effective because the springlocks are cheaper than having a stand alone suit, and so the immersion is better due to there being only 1 of the characters. Plus the gold paint isn't cheap I think.

You missed one. Sister Location Night 4. We found out that there was a mechanism to wind the springlocks so that they don't unlock... Breathing, Heartbeat or water seems to cause them to go loose and perhaps go into animatronic mode. So when William got springlocked it could have been caused that out of fear he did not wind the springlocks and they went loose...

5:53 "The beginning of the end is near When he calls the road will begin For the sun to rise it must first set"

Saying how easy it was to be springlocked we can assume how William and Henry built their own animatronics I can see how the twist peg would be carelessly done and voilà you got a dangerous springlock.

Spinglocks helped hold the exoskeleton to the main animatronic so when they we're closed they would like go on to the metal parts and lock them, When you're wearing the suit you're are only wearing the exoskeleton with the springlocks compressed. Hope that helps

The Bite of 83 was caused by a huge amount of force. The systems happened to fail and the top of the head, and it was heavy, fell on the kid's head.

The Silver Eyes: Do I look like a joke to you?

I know conventionally, we think that the all the spring lock suits in FNAF are hand cranked, but I believe it would make much more sense (at least in my mind) that certain spring lock suits like Spring Bonnie were electronically operated by some sort of button. Makes more sense as to why they fail when they get wet.

I love how this video also just completely wrecks the Fnaf movie's visual interpretation of a "springlock failure". That scene was already stupid, but seeing a detailed explanation of what springlocks are only serves to exacerbate it. The games managed to get away with it because, despite Scott Cawthon having limited engineering knowledge, the games are vague enough that an actual expert could come up with a reasonable explanation for how it could theoretically work.

Just so you know for some reason there are spring locks in the head to keep the eyes of the suit form impaleing you and and more in the head

maybe the springlock failure in the game was a pen breaking.

William Afton made the springlock suits so if any robot acts weird he can play as the robot to keep entertaining kids

Honestly surprised you didn't mention the springlocks shown in the comic book where (even if drawn small) get to see how they made the springlocks work.

Now I have always thought the design principal of having the hybrid suit could work. But here is the better idea than making a dangerous suit that you yourself as the designer intend to wear along with others make the costume parts themself removable then just have it so that it clips on to the animatronic figure separately. The main reason for a hybrid design is consistency, what the kids see when the animatronic preforms is the same looks as the costume. If that is it just have a body suit made of something like spandex and then the assumed foam and plastic shells slide onto the suit and clip in to it. You have the same functionality with 100000000000% less of the risk of death to the user (then again this is Afton so maybe that was its intended purpose)

Just wanna point out that springlocks WERE actually dangerous they have been redesigned now but many types of springlocks back in the day were very dangerous and sharp

how the springlocks work in fnaf:First pull the lock back and the entire thing gets pulled back but if slightly move the lock will unlock and stab it's self into the suit and body.

The spring locks were used to keep the animatronic parts secure so they don’t move when in animatronic mode, and when the suit is in suit mode the spring locks bring back the animatronic parts.

*_THE BEGINNING OF THE END DRAWS NEARER WHEN HE CALLS THE ROAD WILL BEGIN FOR THE SUN TO RISE IT MUST BE FIRST SET_*

purple guy was full of himself, and thought he was so smart because he made an animatronic that's also a suit. he doesn't care about the cost.

Here’s another thing. Look at Withered Chica’s mechanism. It might not be a springlock suit, but she might’ve still had the same jaw mechanism as Fredbear. Or it’s just an 8-Bit mini game where all visuals are inaccurate.

I have a theory as to the bite. What kind of pneumatic piston is cheap and plentiful, in stock nearby for sure, and can crush a human skull? Semi truck brake pods! Parking side of the cylinder fills with air to compress a huge (and known to mame) spring to extend the rod, and the other side equalizes the pressure when the brake pedal is applied to recompress the spring. If the parking air was always supplied, and the jaw was actuated with the service... The jaw could shut fatality if the e-stop switch causes the lines to decompress.

7:25 : exists The entire FNaF fandom:

This is my favorite genre of FNAF content: "I know how real robots/animatronics work, here's how this would really work" ^^ I remember when I was into FNAF as a teenager I started researching real animatronics and watching videos from people like Big Cheese (and like 2 or 3 other channels that mostly focused on Chuck E Cheese and amateur robotics that I forgot the names of) and that made me realize I wanted to become an animatronics engineer for movies and theme parks and such, but when I was in robotics club they wouldn't let me work on the robot and I got the worst programming teacher ever so I gave up. Now I'm settling for being a mechanic and just going to trade school instead, but I still love animatronics (and some cars have pneumatic systems and servos too so there's at least a little overlap.) But this video, along with having seen the FNAF movie yesterday, made me wish I hadn't given up and instead said "Mom this school is horrible for robotics, the teachers don't know what they're teaching us and are just telling us to Google everything. I need to transfer across town" and maybe taken shop instead of game design.

"the beginning of the end draws near when he calms the road will begin for the sun to rise it must first set" -Random creepy text

the bite of 83 was because of when in performing for the public, the mouth needed to open, reacting to the springlocks.with evan, he was crying and moving. knowing that the animatronic will be damaged by this, it jumps into storage position, mouth closed, arms alongside the body. it can be seen that fredbear jumps into this position after the bite. so with evan in, it would have been just how it went by.

The Crying Child's death also couldn't have been caused by springlocks because the springlocks are only active when in suit mode. Fredbear/Golden Freddy was clearly in animatronic mode when the incident happened.

Fantastic video! Love the explanations. (Btw as a side note, the springlock animatronics are called "springbonnie" and "Fredbear". Hope this helps :))

As a child i thought they where just made up by scot as a fictional mechanism with the specific propertises he wanted and thats fine as he did a good job of saying what attributes it has.

I’m not trying to nitpick, but the spring lock failure that happened to William Afton happened way after the dinner closed down, and the spring lock failure that made the place close down was just an employee wearing one of the suits. (And William Afton wasn’t the only owner of the establishment Henry Emily was the co founder, and Henry was the only person who built the suits, so William wouldn’t know that the spring locks would fail.)

The bite of ‘83 probably was because he was preforming so he was obviously already going to close his mouth while singing not spring locks but rather compressed air like the rest of his body.