Mechanical Code Unit

A mechanical code unit (MCU) is a piece of electromechanical coding hardware used to translate the unique bitting of a physical key into a set of analog or digital signals that constitute an encryption key. Effectively, it reads the key bitting and translates it into a key. In order to prevent the code from being recovered from the pins of the cylinder itself, usually only half of the bits on the key are used in the mechanical unlock sequence for the cylinder, and the full number of bits are used to derive the encryption key. Mechanical code units are commonly seen in mechanical key systems that power permissive action link systems, such as the K-Lock V100.