Locksmithing 101 EVERYTHING You Need To Know About The H72 Transponder Key

Jot down some notes lockbosses, because I'm going to give you everything that you need to know about the H72 PT transponder key, which happens to be one of the top 10 transponder keys in the USA Today. We will be going over which chip is used, the test key, the shell port number, the code series, and how to duplicate the key.

But before we do, let's go down memory lane and talk about the history of the H72. All of the information I'm going to be talking about will also be available in PDF format; check the notes below. So make sure you print that off and keep that for your records.

HISTORY OF H72

The H72 was introduced in 1996, with the Ford Mustang and some Lincoln vehicles. It was a massive shift in the industry, especially in the automotive locksmithing industry. This was new tech, a new computer chip inside of a key for a vehicle. Suddenly, all the locksmiths that got used to that key, the ohm resistor, and all that kind of stuff had to pivot, switch gears to start doing this. And at the time, the big machine was the Ford NGS. It was a cool unit that you use, it was quite a big thing back in the day, and from my perspective, the H72 set the industry in motion to as we know it today. Although the H72 was first introduced in 1996, and it was used until about 2006. Ford introduced another key, the H84, the jewel key. However, they kind of keep using them. And that's kind of a common thing you'll see. It's almost like they have a back stock of an older chip. And even though they introduced a new one, they picked some vehicles, and they keep it with that older technology. So, the exciting part to me is from 1996 to about 2006 is the lifespan of the H72 and for it is still here in 2021 being a top 10 transponder key is impressive. And it shows the dominance this key had back then. Now the H in the H72 stands for Herd, who at the time was making the ignitions for Ford. I've been talking a lot about Ford and a bit of Lincoln, but also, mercury was using this key as well.

CHIP

Texas Instruments make the chip used in the H72, and it's a four C chip. This is a glass chip, and, in the industry, we typically will call it a crystal chip, but it's referring to that of a glass chip. It is a 40-bit chip as well. And the most exciting thing about this glass chip is it's not used a lot. It was used by a few different manufacturers and a few different forms for a short amount of time but is what you'll find is that it's a more fragile type of chip. Even dropping the key on the floor can potentially crack it. And so, this is one of the keys that you're not going to want to try to harvest the chip out in case of emergencies because you must be extra fragile with it.

TEST KEY

The test key for the H72 is going to be the H75 key. This is very common, you should always have a lot of these in stock, and it's the same test key used up through the years, whether you're going to be using the H74 key or the H84 or H92. All of those are using that same test key. So if you're new to this, you want to be stocking up an H75 test key.

SHELL

As far as the key shell goes, the JMA Part number is the TP00F0-15D.P. I like the JMA test shells. They're high quality, they're first to market them as well, and they do an outstanding job as far as transferring the chips. But like I was saying, I mean there are situations where you need to harvest it, and you got to be extra careful, but for the most part, it's not one of those you'll want to gather. However, if you miscut it, using a JMA shell is a good thing.

CODE SERIES

The code series is 0001x - 1706X. This is the code series that Ford has used for many years, starting with the H72 key, and it goes all the way up until more recent times on like the H92 PT. So it's convenient for all of us in the industry because essentially, it's the same blade, it's the same data, the only thing different is the head of the key, shape and the chip used inside and that's from the H72, H74, H84, H92, all of them are using that. Essentially, everything is the same except for the head shape and the chip.

KEY DUPLICATING

When it comes to key duplicating, you're going to duplicate the H72 PT, the same way you're going to duplicate a standard H75 key or H92. It's all the same. Here's a quick overview of how you do that.

I used JMA Nomad with four-way jaws, and however, if you have a two-way jaw machine, you're magnificent. Typically side 1 or side A is all you're going to need to have this key on to duplicate it properly.

Get an H75 key as a test key and put it on one left side. I have put it on the big main groove of the key, unlike the B106, or the B111 Circle plus transponder key, there is almost always enough meat on the bone, so to speak, on the side of the key to clamp it down and to keep it secure.

There's not much material here to clamp onto, but it's still enough without any problem. So we're going to put the key on the left side and set it on the ledge. Typically, you always want to use the last slot so most of the keys can be clamped. Do not forget to use a tip stop key. A tip stop means that there's no shoulder that you would use to align it with, so since there's no shoulder to align it with, you're going to align it to the tip stop right here.

Once you have that in place, let me grab a transponder and show you that the principles work the same here.

Use an H75 as a practice test. We'll get that and put it in, get it down there and let's go ahead and duplicate it quick.

When we have one side done, we'll flip it around and do the same on the other side. Spin a slight buff to get rid of the deep burrs. And what we're going to do is flip over the one-sided cut key. One of the rules of thought with duplicating double-sided keys is there's a cut on both sides. Some guys like to flip it and cut the other side, which is not a bad practice. However, I do it based on the wear of the key. If it's a pretty worn key, I'll flip it over and do both sides; otherwise, I'll keep it on the one side when I'm duplicating. So that's up to you. Experience will help you with that as time goes on here. So go ahead and get this put in here. Get that realigned to the tip stop. If we're doing a shoulder stop, we'd be using the gauge up here, but there's no shoulder that we're going to be able to clamp on to.

Let's go ahead and cut the other side.

And here you have it. That's how easy it is to duplicate one of these H75 or H92 transponder keys.

Everything that you need to know about the H72 PT: I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments below. Thank you, and we'll see you next time.