Safe Accessories

Agreed with Smoke, at some point you just have to tip your hat if someones able to figure a way around everything or move to a better area. A home security system would do more to help then rigging the safe up with electronics imo.

Nice safe smoke looks real heavy and sturdy. Love the M&P as well, I have the same one in a .45.

Only one of the problems with a safe. Think about what happens to anything plastic in a safe from a fire. Many paper and cardboard objects too. If your safe is in safe place for fires, might hot get to hot inside. But if it does.so many things get messed up. Coin Albums with plastic slides. Slabbed coins.
Hopefully no one saw them deliver that safe. People have a tendency to not only talk, but exagerate.

Smoke I really like the .40s too. My sig is a 40 and thats my favorite of them all. Already having two 40s when I got the M&P I thought I would mix it up a bit with the 45. I have the horandy self defense rounds if god forbid I had to use it not at the range, I agree some sort of hollow point is a must for that so you only hit what you intended too

Ok, getting back to this topic. I finally installed my lighting system in the safe tonight, and I'm quite pleased with the results. I used tape/strip LED lighting from a company called PPA, International. The product is OLS (Omni Lighting Systems).

A little back story. I'd purchased a couple kits from Fry's (U.S. electronics superstore) a year or three back with the intention of installing some countertop down-lighting from my kitchen cabinets. That never materialized so this stuff was in my cupboard for a couple years. It occurred to me after I originally posted this thread that I could use it for this application, and it turned out to be nearly perfect. The reason I didn't use it for my kitchen cupboards is that it's expensive. 25 bucks for about 2 feet of light strips, and that's just the strips. The power/control kit (with a couple strips) is more like 50. It's continuous strip lighting...for my kitchen I would prefer some spot-type lighting just for effect.

However, in my safe, I want bright, even lighting, and I only have about 8 linear feet to light up, so it seemed a perfect fit. I had to go to Fry's and pick up $50 more of lighting but I estimate you could do what I did for $100-125 if you bought a bigger kit online. Or I think there are other tape/strip lighting providers out there and you may be able to get away much cheaper.

Advantages:
1. The OLS product is customizable in 12" light strip increments, and has options for extension cables, of which I used a couple 12" ones for the corners of my safe.
2. Cool running. The LED strips generate almost no heat. At the brightest setting, it's only slightly warm to the touch. You can tweak the wattage output down to low levels where you can't even feel any heat if you wish and it still provides plenty of light.
3. Has crazy lighting options - this is a full color system so you can light your safe with whatever color makes you smile when it gleams of off your stacks of silver. Seriously, you can make it look like a Vegas limo if you want it. Fade in/out, rotate colors, pulse, whatever. I prefer solid white on medium intensity, but that's just vanilla me. :)
4. Is completely invisible if you attach the light strips to the front wall of the safe facing in (i.e., doesn't blind you; only illuminates the interior of the safe and its contents).
5. Does not interfere with the door bolts (at least in my safe)
6. Easy to install (self-stick)

Disadvantages:
1. Requires you to route power into your safe somehow. Some safes have power accessories, but mine doesn't, so I snuck the power for this system into my safe through a bolt-down hole.
2. Doesn't have motion-sense on/off (but I bet you could install something after-market to address that). However, with the low heat generation, I doubt it would really be a problem. Most electric dehumidification systems seem to just raise the temperature inside the safe by a few degrees anyway.
3. This is kind of a tie-in with #2. Requires a remote control to turn lights on/off. Not really a big deal actually, as I just turn off the lights and put the very slim remote on the front of a top shelf when I close the safe. Also gotta keep the infrared receiver in line-of-sight of the remote.

Below is a picture of the open safe in a dimly-lit room.



Let me know if you have any questions.

One other nice light-type thing would be some sort of dial illuminator so you can see what you're doing when dialing in the combo. Will work on that; think I've seen little magnetic lights that mount over the dial and shine a nice compact beam on the indicator.

Here is a great video on safes, covers the Chinese safes, vs. American made, and the important part - the door and metal gauge thickness. It's based on guns, but the information is still very sound!

@jbuck, just getting back to your comments...been a long few days... phew....




Good point. And yes, I am actually concerned about how the safe looks so I'd prefer an inside mount. I installed Cat-5 into the safe when I ran the power for the lighting system. So I may just rig up some 2-wire sensor for open/close and (like you suggested) alarm on tamper too. The Cat-5 line is very well hidden but if the door is opened OR the line is cut, it would alarm. There are few folks who know enough about what I have and my system to fail all of my systems without raising an alarm. In fact exactly one; me.




Agreed. I generally keep the safe open unless I am right there next to it, and my access of my NAS coincides with that behavior most of the time. I do see applications where I'm on the road and need to access the NAS with the safe all buttoned up, so your point is a valid one.




Quite right, sir. A problem is I would have to run power into the safe. Someone mentioned that having copper run directly into your safe is a bad idea. And I agree.... marginal (ahem) heat conductor that copper is and all. However, my primary concern is security at this point. I think I will explore POE.

@pennrj430 - Thanks! It's a Hollon Republic RG-22 and it's around 15 cubic feet. I believe it's a Korean import but I'm not sure. I did some research on it and found it to be a great buy for the price point (~$1500). My local locksmith was having a safe sale and I got a steep discount on it, otherwise I probably would have spent the money on a Liberty.

I'm very pleased with it!

The two big concerns when getting a safe (IMO) are;

1. Delivery in only an unmarked van - not something that says SAFES,etc. on the side.

2. Location & securing of the safe in your space. I'd always bolt or somehow anchor the safe to the floor, even a huge heavy one. Thieves don't care about damage as they haul your safe out.

A good friend of mine lost a 650 lb. safe from his third floor office in an old Victorian house. Took them maybe 5-10 minutes to drag it off. They used a four wheel dolly to roll it to the stairs where they pushed it down to the second floor landing where there was a sun deck in the back then dollied it to the balcony and pushed it off to the ground 10' below. They must have had a truck or van to haul it off, but beyond loosing the safe, which was almost empty, only tax records, and some personal papers, no money, jewels, coins or gold, LOL, the office sustained a lot of physical damage. Walls, flooring, stairwell, etc. from it being drug out then pushed through the balcony railing, the thieves kicked that down to make a way to shove it off. It happened on a Sunday afternoon. My friend was in the process of moving his coin office and had already removed all his inventory for the move that week, lucky for him.