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When trying to change the cylinder of my lock (European version), I discovered that it has what seems to be an extra "slot" along the external part:

It looks like it prevents standard cylinder to fit (this is a Heracles lock).

Is this normal? (I guess not)

Is this fixable? (so that I can use other cylinder)

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Alaska Man
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WoJ
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    I suspect you're right, that it prevents replacement of branded cylinders with generic (possibly lower quality) hardware. You'd have to remove a tab in the mating part. – isherwood Sep 24 '20 at 13:24
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    In the US there things called registered key-ways these are used in hospitals where they lock up the drugs the mechanism and key blank are unique and registered to get one all kinds of paperwork is required. You may have a similar setup on your side of the pond. – Ed Beal Sep 24 '20 at 13:55
  • Does the door have a matching key that fits into that slot when you put the lock back in? – ThreePhaseEel Sep 24 '20 at 23:43
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    @ThreePhaseEel: sorry I do not understand your question. This slot is there because there is a small tab inside the door (as part of the construction of the lock) that prevents other European cylinders to be inserted (they do not have the slot and therefore are blocked by the tab). – WoJ Sep 25 '20 at 06:52

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Heracles calls your type of lock the "carénée sésame" (according to Google Translate, the "sesame fairing", though a better English translation would probably be the "sesame edge" or "sesame strip").

An example Euro cylinder from Heracles is the model SR series. In the pictures on that page, you will see that they are mostly standard Euro cylinders but there is one picture of a cylinder with a notch like yours. If you look at the datasheet, you will see that this model is labelled "Spécial remplacement pour carénée sésame" ("Special replacement for sesame fairing"). As far as I can tell, Heracles only makes some of their cylinders for this lock.

Because of the notch, they need to sell separate left-handed and right-handed versions of the cylinder, but I could not find anywhere they explain the purpose of the notch. The most likely reason would be to make sure you don't insert the cylinder backwards (since it is twice as long on one side, which doesn't seem to be very common), but according to the datasheet Heracles also makes other models of 30mm/60mm cylinder without the notch.

handedness

It also appears that the newer "SESAME 2" model of the lock no longer has this restriction, though it is hard to confirm that for sure.

Given all that information, the implication is that this was really just a method of controlling what locks you could use. That said, don't go grind off the notch on my say-so, because I don't speak French and can't confirm all this information for sure.

Moshe Katz
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