I picked up a second safe on Black Friday this year.  It is a Winchester model from Tractor Supply.  It was a good deal and is helping with my overflow.

I went to open it today and when I touched the key pad there was a static shock and the keypad beeped and is now completely unresponsive.  I have removed the battery, tried several fresh batteries, and called Winchester (they are forwarding me through some more detailed tech support via email - which will be nice an slow).

I can get in the safe because this unit has a key backup.  Which is part of the reason I was ok with an electronic lock unit.


I have a hard time believing that a simple static shock could kill a lock.  It seems like this would be a big deal and would be fairly common.

Any thoughts?

Mustn't have made it through any compliance testing.

Well, it isnt an S&G lock or anything.  So who knows who is making it.

Of course Winchester hasn't sent me out the email that was supposed to come (within 15mins).  I am sure the lady took my name down incorrectly.

I left a battery in it and the lock hanging there while I did some work.  Happened to touch it later and it static shocked again and beeped.  But still wouldnt do anything when I tried the keypad.  I took the battery out and did a terminal connection at the 9v connector and wouldnt you know - it works again - at least for now.

I am wondering why it is resulting in static shock so much.  The safe is isolated from the floor on a pad and not touching anything else. The only think I can this is that I have lights wired through and into the safe.  They are LEDs that plug into the wall via a typical usb style 120v plug (which doesnt have a true ground on the plug).  I am wondering if this could be causing the shock issue, but it all seems weird.  I am going to try and unplug the lights and see if it still does it - but I have to move the safe to reach the plug.

I have no power (lights or anything) going to my Winchester TS20-30. Bought it only a month ago. It just sits there. I found almost every time I'd go to open it, I would a beep on the first number, then nothing. Would have to disconnect and reconnect the battery. Then it would function..... till the next time. Then one day I felt a good static shock when touching the keypad, which of course made it do the same thing. For a week now I touch the body of the safe before touching the keypad and it hasn't failed. It must be very sensitive to static from the carpet and by touching the mass of metal first it discharges the energy, even if so slight a shoch isn't felt and the keypad has yet to fail. And it was failing almost every time. I'm opening it several times a day using the new technique just getting a feel for if it will reliably work all the time.

Static kills chips and transistors
Burns a hole through the layers and it’s dead.
Even a minor shock can weaken it and it will fail later
Ground the keypad with a grounded ring around the keypad to touch first.
This ring can be copper or aluminum tape, connecting under the keypad to a screw that holds the keypad to the safe door
If the safe has power going into it then it should be grounded through the power cord if it has three prongs, if not additional ground can be a screw and wire to the nearest receptacle ground or the screw that holds the plate on
High voltage always goes to the easiest path to ground, so give it a good direct path and this helps to keep it away from sensitive components

I am going to make sure my lights are properly grounded out.

In the meantime, I have been trying to train myself to not touch the keypad first.

But, it just seems crap to me that such a simple failure is not addressed in the lock design/setup.