I got to the wood shop a little around 6:30, to then walk over to the jointer to find it running full speed, without a soul in or around the wood shop. This is exactly how Jamie in a previous post of mine had his accident he put his hand on a jointer he didn’t think was running, so I strongly suggest no disciplinary action but an absolute teaching of safety!
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We really ought to have warning lights on some tools. It’s really easy to not notice that a tool is running, especially with the Felder on.
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This was me. I am very sorry and agree I should have been more careful. I turned the unit off and on so many times during my work that I messed a up on the last one. Whatever consequences are accepted and I will be extra diligent regardless of any extra training needed. I also had hearing protection on and that contributed. I will remove them when I finish working to ensure I listen as well. Once again very sorry. Just let me know the consequences.
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I’m not the one to make the calls but the fact you not only instantly identified what happened, owned up to it, personally I would consider that sufficient! I was thinking it was someone who just lacked training but that I don’t feel is the case here
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The problem with most warning light installations I see is that they are not in direct line of sight when looking at the hazard. If I were doing a warning light on the jointer, I’d put a red LED strip on the top edge of the fence.
Something like this that is waterproof and can be cut to length.
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I like the concept. Of course it’s only truly useful if it comes on automatically when tool is energized (or upon badge-in)…which may be an obstacle…possibly somehow connect it through the RFID box/thing?
And reminder that particular tool is 220VAC (and possibly 3 phase?). And the cords and extra length to accommodate fence adjustment back-to-front must be designed to never possibly get caught up in blades (behind fence), or interfere with stock movement during cut, or create a tripping hazard as folks are moving about.
This is a good idea, though, and might/could be extended to other tools…I’ve encountered a band saw left running there, a lathe (although that was intentional according to person that walked away from it for a few minutes), and the spindle sander (not really as dangerous as others, but still…).
This could be easily done with a clamp type current sensor. I have one here (at home). I also have scads of LED strips with adhesive on the back. I’ll cobble something together to test.
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That’s a lot of noise
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I’d just wire it up to the motor power supply. Keep It Simple, uh Sam. If the motor is energized, the LEDs are on. Most of the LED power supplies are good for 90 - 260 VAC. If it’s three phase, just pick a phase if there’s no neutral.
It’s probably pretty important that the LED strip be the ruggedized waterproof type in an extruded silicone cover. The common bare flex circuit strips probably won’t survive the vibration very long.
So I am the cause of this, if I can lend a hand just let me know when you will be there. I am NOT very skilled at electrical and electronics but can lend a hand if needed and appreciate all the ideas to help prevent my lack of discipline from hurting someone.
Thanks
Why not just use those single light cherry(think starsky and hutch) like we used to have with the old.dust collectors so you don’t have to worry to much about pretecting them or damage proofing them, but they’d probably need to be dimmed significantly so its not a binding flashing red light like your being pulled over and more of just a dim glow
That could work, but the strip led on the fence would be guaranteed to be in your line of sight.
I also wouldn’t go modifying wood shop equipment without clearing with the wood shop committee, or at least the chair.
I see that being more of a hazard than a cherry light on a little pole stand cause youd have be 1 100% confident whatever adhesive uses to mount it to the fence would be permanent and epoxy super glue etc other than a mechanical connection I can’t think of anything id trust not to come off over time and potentially fall into the cutters! And 2 come up with a hell of wire management system to allow the retraction and extension of the wires to avoid tugging tangling or binding
Imo, there is a reason that stack lights are used in many industrial shops, which is what I would prefer to see on all larger machines here.
I agree that lights on the fence might be more directly visible when using it, but the idea should be that anyone at a glance can see from anywhere in the room if a machine is on/not.
From what I’ve seen, when the occasional machine is left on, its because someone walked away to grab their next piece or similar, and then got sidetracked - putting a small strip on the machine isn’t really going to help with that.
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I think we’re trying to solve slightly different, though closely related problems.
- trying to make a machine’s state apparent to everyone in the room
- trying to alert someone focused on using a particular machine and making it clear that it’s on and dangerous.
These are not mutually exclusive, but do have different emphasis.
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Well I feel you can do number 1 while also accomplishing number 2. And I feel a machine with a ghost operator is more dangerous to someone who wasn’t the operator than a user of the machine, because people behave around machines inherently differently when the expectation is of them to be off ie when I walk in at midnight and there’s maybe 1 person in auto bay and a couple people in computer lab so letting anyone know is better for saftey than focusing on reminding the user! Because during the day a running machine is still dangerous but will be caught fairly quickly and when there’s other machines going you’re in safety mode when you walk into a quiet wood shop you’re still in relaxed mode until you go to use a machine so that’s when it can be really really dangerous
But as mentioned above stack lights(thanks for the name, never knew what they were actually called) would be great just wed have to dim them significantly for our usage cause full power would be 1 blinding and 2 really distracting and annoying when multiple machines were in use
As I said,
What’s been discussed is several overlapping use cases.
Stack Lights are perfect if the user is looking at them for status. They can be seen from a distance. But they do need to be polled by the user. If the user is focused on the machine, there’s a good chance they can be missed in many cases. It’s unlikely they’d need to be dimmed, because they are generally designed to be visible but not overwhelming in an industrial environment. The lights on the lasers don’t seem to be overwhelming.
I believe the difference between the cases I listed is that case 1 can be polled, case 2 needs to be an interrupt.
Of course people can learn to ignore anything.
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Well yea but put the laser lights 2 feet away from your face and introduce a 12” long 3 in wide cutting head and I’d imagine it might take the laser (pun not intended)focus needed to be safe to a slightly lower level! And I feel a stack light literally touching the machine in a place where it won’t interfere would do the exact same job as an led strip and make it slightly above the machines highest point and it will literally never go unnoticed plus’s there no need to damage proof, and to make a cable extension and retraction system to allow the fence to move would honestly require someone to engineer something similar to like an iron or hairdryers cord retract system so there’s never too much resistance or too much slack
This clamp on current sensor, an ADC board, an Aduino board and sketch to drive some LEDs would probably work.
30 amp and 100 amp sense versions available for ~$12
Arduino would need power, but no changes to tool circuitry.
