Building a working sonic screwdriver...

[jayscoottey]

Hello, first off, not sure if this is the right place to put this but oh well. I am on the quest to build a working sonic screwdriver, modeled after the one the 10th doctor uses. Now i'm not talking about a REAL sonic screwdriver, just one that can unlock the door to my room. How it shall work is I will have an infrared activated lock on my door, and use the ir remote sonic screwdriver or mod a regular replica to activate it, so it seems as if I have used a real sonic screwdriver to unlock it. Tada!

Now I really dont know what im doing so any advice would be nice. Does anyone know of any other door lock mechanisms that can be opened wirelessly? Especially something with a small remote. I would prefer to find an alternative to buying the sonic screwdriver remote since it is around $100.

[random980]

You're in he right forum, don't worry
I don't think there is a cheap alternative to what your're trying to do. You're buying fairly expensive components even without the sonic screwdriver theme. IMO the $100 sonic screwdriver remote is your best bet.

[LS13]

A quick search is showing that a lot of infrared deadbolts go for around 100$. I'm sure with some time put into digging you could find a much cheaper alternative for the lock. As for the sonic, I know there are versions of 11's screwdriver that light up. Not sure for 10's sonic, but if there is a model that has a light you could theoretically take it apart and replace the light with an infrared LED.

Buying an infrared LED and detector can actually be quite cheap, I saw some going as low as 2$. However I do not know how you would go about setting up a lock with that detector by hand.

[jayscoottey]

I did a little reasearch, and the $100 remote seems like the easiest way to do it. Programming it to an ir lock would be very easy to do. There is a version of the tenth doctor's screwdriver that lights up but i'm not sure about how easy it would be to take it apart. As for the lock, my house already has an electronic lock on it (keypad code) which might make it easy to put in some kind of infrared trigger.

[MrWhales]

I did some googles, and this came up:

http://www.instructables.com/answers/I- ... ck-doors-/

Someone looking to do the same, with the same sort of thoughts in response that I was having.

The best I could imagine working would be if you found an old tv with it's remote, make sure that the remote actually can control the tv in some way, then somehow take out just a piece of the remote that works, with the IRLED and fit it into a replica screwdriver. Then take the receiver pieces in the TV and fit them so that it trips the door unlock sequence. Without using numbers the receiver should pick up the IR you want(your sonic) and saturate a transistor to apply power to either the unlock circuit itself, or to some other business that would result in unlocking of the door.

This house that you live in, with your parents I assume, if either of your parents are handy and/or installed the system themself, they could help you since they should know the system. Or just get them to float the question to the security company, I'm sure you aren't the first to want it, and they might be able to work something out.

Otherwise you could possibly at the very least break your door lock all the way up to trip the alarm I assume exists and the police will wonder why someone was poking a funny looking stick at a keypad.

[SMWasder]

I have no technical knowledge to add, but if your bedroom door doesn't look like the door to the TARDIS you're missing out big time.