Control a Schlage electronic deadbolt with an arduino!

Step 4 Check out all of the neat stuff

You should see the backside of the intermediary plate as well as the part of the mechanism that actually does the locking.

If you weren't careful, the long thin part that goes through the middle portion likely pushed its way out a bit and an almost invisible spring went shooting somewhere. Go find it. We'll call this assembly the working portion. Picture 2 displays how it goes together.

On the right you'll see a piece of plastic that resembles a backwards C. This piece of plastic uses a post on its backside between two coils of a spring attached to a motor. When it moves up, it pushes the mushroom shaped part of the working portion upwards causing the "stem" of the mushroom to stick out into some of the fingers of the star shaped piece on the rear of the intermediary plate. This allows the knob on the front of the lock to turn the working portion and operate the deadbolt.

It's pretty simple but very effective. Motor spins in one direction, plastic goes up and the lock works. Motor spins in the opposite direction, plastic goes down, lock freewheels.

In the next step, I'll show how to attach some wires to the motor so you can control them.