New Cabinet Lock-In-A-Box from RCI

Drawer and door cabinet locks have depended on wafer lock construction for decades. Wafer locks are useful for keeping prying eyes or young children from getting to the contents of a cabinet, but that is the extent of their usefulness. Locksmiths learned long ago how to pick open wafer locks, and it is usually not a very involved process.

Rutherford Controls (RCI) has just introduced a new CL2 electronic cabinet lock which is operated with iButtons. There is no mechanical key bypass. This unique cabinet lock can be installed as the primary locking device or as a secondary locking device in addition to an existing drawer or cabinet door lock. The CL2 is designed for interior use.

Each user carries his or her own iButton key. An iButton reader is installed on the outside of the cabinet. The user simply presents his or her iButton into the iButton reader. A correctly enrolled iButton key will release the CL2 cabinet lock for a five-second time period. After five seconds, the cabinet lock will return to a locked position. The CL2 uses a spring-operated latch which automatically locks the cabinet whenever the door or drawer is fully closed.

RCI iButton electronic locks use an internally-mounted battery. According the RCI, the battery will operate for over 50,000 operations before needing replacement. It is not necessary to remove the CL2 cabinet lock in order to replace the battery. A Phillips screw retains a small cover plate in position. When the screw is removed, the battery can be easily removed and replaced. A Duracell “J” type battery is required.

The RCI iButton lock will accept up to 160 individual user keys. Keys can be set to operate more than one iButton lock. This allows an administrator to have a key which operates several iButton cabinet locks while each user might have a key which operates only their own individual cabinet lock.

RCI CL2 iButton locks are shipped with one each of four separately colored iButton keys. Yellow keys are for users; black keys are called shadow keys; blue keys are for adding users and red keys are for deleting users. Additional iButton keys can be ordered as needed.

An LED indicator light is mounted on the front surface of the CL2 unit. During the initial installation of each CL2 lock, the ‘add’ and ‘delete’ keys must be enrolled.

ENROLLING ADD/DELETE KEYS
1.         Present the blue ‘add’ key to the reader. The LED will flash once.
2.         Present the red ‘delete’ key to the reader. The LED will flash twice.

The ‘add’ and ‘delete’ keys have now been enrolled.

ENROLLING USER KEYS
1.         Present the blue ‘add’ key to the reader. The LED will flash once.
2.         Present a yellow ‘user’ key to the reader, followed by presenting a black ‘shadow’ key. The LED will flash once. (User and Shadow keys are always enrolled in pairs).

DELETING USER KEYS
1.         Present the red ‘delete’ key to the reader
2.         Present either the yellow ‘user’ key’ or the companion black ‘shadow’ key to the reader. The LED will flash once to show that the user key and shadow keys have been deleted.

Each yellow ‘user’ key has a companion black ‘shadow’ key which should be catalogued by user name. This allows the administrator to delete either individual lost yellow user keys or keys not returned by former users.