It finally happened.  I knew it was going to happen someday, and I'm highly pissed at myself right now.

Last week, my wife went to get my daughter's birth certificate out of the safe, a Fort Knox Guardian with a S&G 6120 keypad lock.  She came into the garage and said, "I can't get the safe to open."

Now at first, I thought it was just because the handle was either at its far left or right limit and was binding the lock's bolt from retracting.  This never was a problem so long as you made sure the handle was "centered" before punching in the code.

So, I go to the safe and make sure the handle is "centered" and there's no binding between the boltworks and the lock.  Punch in the code and hear a barely audible click as the lock tries to retract the bolt.  Safe won't open.  Okay... Maybe the batteries are low.

I pull off the keypad from it's mount and remove one of the batteries, and the damn contact for the negative battery post comes right out with the battery.  The solder joint between the contact and the PCB of the keypad was broken and I'm now holding the negative battery connection in my hand.  Shit.  I could see some of the copper ribbon embedded in the PCB was torn as well.  So I'm guessing the 6120 keypad wasn't supplying enough current to the lock to get the motor to drive the bolt up.  With the one good battery, all I get is a soft click.  That's it.  The motor won't drive.

So off to amazon, and I find a seller with a NIB 6120 keypad.  Just the keypad.  I bought it and it's gonna be here today or tomorrow.  I'm hoping and praying (really praying) that because of the broken contact in the keypad, the lock can't get enough power to operate the motor.  My understanding is that the 6120 lock stores the combination code in the lock itself in non-volatile memory, and the only thing the keypad does is supply power to the lock behind the door and input the combination to it.  I'm praying that if I connect a new keypad with two brand new 9V batteries, the lock will open.

If it does, I'm immediately stripping out the 6120 and ordering a 6730 Group 2 dial lock.  I've know this was going to happen someday, and I shoulda put a dial lock in a long time ago.

If it doesn't, I found a troubleshooting guide published by S&G which has a "walk back" procedure where you keep inputting the code and incrementally drive the lock bolt up until it clears the boltworks.

And if that doesn't work, I'm going to have to get a locksmith to drill and open the safe.  The cost for my one local locksmith to drill, open, plug and replace with a dial lock was quoted at $1000 and he's three to four weeks out.

So before I proceed, does anyone have any tips or strategies?  I'm really thinking this all being caused by that broken battery terminal, but who knows...

Just installed the brand new 6120 keypad with brand new Duracell batteries.  Problem remains the same.  Apparently Fort Knox has a “lifetime warranty”, I guess we’ll see what they say tomorrow.

"lifetime warranty" means that there is a warranty until it dies and you would need a new lock?

Well I gotta say Fort Knox's customer service is spot on.

They are covering it 100%, local safe technician is coming this week.

Will update later.

Two days after calling Fort Knox, I've got my safe opened and a new dial lock installed.  Took the technicians about 90 minutes to get it open.  They did not have to drill the safe.

The electronic lock's drive mechanism was binding up, and they had to re-enter the code probably 100 times while beating on the front of the safe before it finally opened.

They said its common for this to happen as the lock gets old, but mine was the worst they've seen.

There was no resistance by Fort Knox CS to try to deny warranty coverage.  They just had to verify I was the original owner of the safe in their records.  They basically said, "A lifetime warranty is a lifetime warranty."

I'm so glad I filled out the warranty registration card and mailed it the day the safe was installed.

So, a shout out to Fort Knox, and if you're getting the feeling you ought to change your electronic lock for a dial lock, do it now.  I've never been quite as pissed at myself as I was the moment that lock wouldn't open.