Gzalo

This project was developed in 2012 for an university class, Técnica Digital. Basically it’s a lock similar to those found in hotel rooms.

To simplify the design, the key is only composed of 4 digits, each one from 1 to 4. Unlike other locks that only allow changing the key by soldering different wires, the idea of the project is to make it in such a way that the key can be stored in a DIP switch.

The circuit was designed in such a way that it needs no clock signal, its fully asyncronic. This internal clock is extracted from the button presses. Two shift registers are used to store the key while it’s being input, and a modulo 5 counter to know in which state the lock is. After inserting the four digits, it gets compared to the key stored in the DIP switch, and the compare result is shown in a red/green LED.

Storing the input in the shift register allows to show the user which digits it has input. The fact that they have two data inputs (which are internally joined via an AND gate) was used to reduce the amount of external logic necessary.