Safe Accessories

Wow, that's quite a list. I like the idea of putting your NAS in there. I'd like to do that as well.

Just a couple of non-technical questions:

1: Where did you have the safe installed? Hopefully in a closet where it would be out of view to your houseguests.

2: If you put it in a closet, which way does the door open. Into or out of the closet? Do you have a lock on it? A door that swings into the a room can be forced open and door that opens out of the room is much more difficult to force open. Some of the best secured doors are on a trailer because they open to the outside.

Dehumidifiers for a safe are a good idea. However drilling a hole into a safe is not a good idea as that hole will weaken the safe's fire protection ability. There are safes out there that have an electrical outlet for the installation of these devices. In any event paper should not be stored next them nor should them be indirect contact with the interior shelving or sides. They do project heat and (at least the one I have) is suprisingly hot to the touch.

A relocker on your safe is a darn good idea. Once the deviced is tampered with a lock smith needs a lot of time to get in. This plus a security system would stand you in good stead.

Hopefully your safe has 1 1/4" bolts extending out from all sides of the door. Three sides is good but four is better. Another thing what constitues fire protection is basically dry wall. The most important aspect is the thickness of the steel that forms the metal box and the weakest point of a safe is its door.

When I had my safe installed I used a 8" titanium bolts at each corner of the safe and had the safe installed in a corner of a closet where two sides were protected. Those bolts are rated for over 800#'s of sheet strength each and the safe weighs in at 1,500 #'s.

I don't have lights in my safe so I don't know what turns those lights on or off, but if you have a dehumidifier and the lights are on when the safe is closed the temperature in the safe could really go up.

The last piece of advice that I would offer is that any real valuable item shold be stored off site. If someone wants into your safe they will do anything to force you to open the safe including using your family. Afterall a safe, especially a visible safe, is an open acknowledgement that you have something valuable in your home that is worth protecting. A safe is a good thing.

Redundancy is also a good thing.

MDS you've got that right. It took them less than 4 minutes to unload the safe and get it into the closet. It took them almost an hour to bolt the safe to the floor.

I have two dogs in the house, both males a Neapolitian Mastiff and a Japanese breed Torsa Inu. Both massive beings that worship the ground that my wife and I walk on. They are definitely not for the timid or inexprienced dog owner. Pizza delivery at my house is an exciting time.

I'm working one last leg of the triangle that wrote of.

Thanks, everyone, for your input!




@jbuck: Chugging along towards 17k I see.

I haven't tested it out but I rather think a battery-powered wireless sensor wouldn't be able to transmit through the walls of a safe. I'm willing to head to Fry's and give it a shot though. :) I'm going to do some research on standalone wireless transmitters that can be polled when I have a moment here. I think I could sneak a pair of wires in through

Why wouldn't you leave a running NAS in a safe? If the drives spin down, the heat production should be minimal. Some safes even have USB ports in them for just such a need. I do have a backup...I robocopy all my critical stuff nightly to two places from my main PC, one of which is the NAS. But the NAS is a lot easier to stick in a bag than my PC.

@FatFreddy - I did see a couple of interesting non-AC-powered dehumidification systems out there. I'll check those sites you mentioned, thanks. Anyone know what the advantages are of an AC-powered one are besides not having to change batteries?

@mds & ghostrider - I've got guard dog on my list. My GF has a little Dachshund but that's not much of an intimidation factor.

@ghostrider - Safe is in a closet in my office that's not lockable without some major construction. Door swings into the room. My safe has at least 1.25" bolts, possibly 1.5". Lighting systems that I've seen are motion-activated and are LED-based, which don't put off a lot of heat.

Again, thanks for your input. I'll post pics and update this thread as I make decisions and progress on my list.

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.