[xander] sent in links to two machines designed to solve padlocks automatically. The first one just modified an old robot project since it already had the necessary stepper motor. The second one was built from scratch and includes a solenoid to test the lock. Both systems are just brute forcing the combination, but they do use some shortcuts. Even though locks have 60 numbers there is less than 20 actual divisions. Also, multiple final numbers can be tested without putting in the first two. With these two shortcuts there are approx. 400 passes. These machines can solve a lock in about 30 minutes. Of course we’ve shown before that any human can solve one in about 10 minutes.
