I forgot to remove the prob cable from the bit before turning on my router. The cable wiped accross my belly.
Luckily I was warring a leather work apron. The Doc said had it not been for the apron i’d be looking at ~60 stichechs. I prommised my wife I that wont not use my CNC until I have a cabent to put it in.
Sorry that happened but I’m glad you were wearing the apron. I nearly forgot to remove the probe cable on a job recently. It was a laser job, not a router job, so it wouldn’t likely have caused harm. This has reminded me though how vigilant we need to be on EVERY job we run, even if you’re just a hobbyist like me. Thanks.
EDIT: No, this was a router job. Just realized that, and it could have been a pretty ugly result for me!
Crikey, glad your ok!
As a thought are you using a croc clip on the cable or a magnetic end? I came up with this idea late last year:
Nice easy mod for you to do
Glad the injury was no worse then it was, and appreciate your sharing.
I made it a habit to always turn off the switch on my router AND on my relay control when a job finishes, and to check them when changing bits/probing. But this was after I, too, had the same mishap as you, happily with no injury.
Are you going to offer these cables? I see that you’ve got your probe up too…
I include one with the probe. I do have them separately but took them off the site for individual site (unless requested)
I’m in the planning phase of a control panel that will control power to various parts of my operation including router, controller, laser, and dust collector, and will also have some “soft” buttons for feed hold and resume, and of course the big red “oh crap” button that kills power to everything.
I have the electronic components, so now just trying to decide on enclosure and mounting. I already had a master power switch I could hit, but recently had another incident that made me think I need more. I have a 10W laser attached to my Z axis and controlled by PWM. I was running a router job and forgot that the laser controller still had power. When I started the job, the router and laser both were running (laser at full power). The laser hit my T track and reflected. I wasn’t wearing my laser safety glasses since I didn’t expect the laser to power up. Fortunately it ended up only in a mild headache from seeing the reflected beam, but it sure scared the crap out of me. Could have been blinded. The control box I’m working on has a key lockout for master power, safety covers over the toggles for router and laser, plus a selector knob that only allows either laser or router to power up (but never both).
Please post photos along the way. I’m hoping Mr. Beaver might consider developing a DIY power controle kit for sale on his website.
Like a total kill box?
Yep. A complete box that houses electronics and incorporates a Killswitch. Possibly programmable bottoms for macros. I bet a lot of people would buy it.
This is exactly why Carbide needs to offer a solution. Hard to believe they removed the Killswitch pins from the shapeoko board. Irresponsible actually.
I wasn’t involved in the decision to remove the E-stop connectors, but I believe this incident sums up one line of thought behind it — having an E-stop lulls a person into a false sense of security / control — in this instance, there’s no way that one could get to and hit the E-stop fast enough.
It’s a power tool, you need to be confident that everything is set up and configured correctly before starting it.
Please use: http://docs.carbide3d.com/general-faq/machine-operating-checklist/
Obviously that and http://docs.carbide3d.com/assembly/touch-probe/userguide/ need to be updated — making a note on it now
It’s an interesting point.
On my larger machine I have a stop button that will stop/pause the machine, similar to the door open button/trigger on the CM board. However I also have a relay bank. On that bank I have three switches.
Kill motors,
Kill spindle
Kill everything
it could be argued the kill everything button is a bad one - as I run a spindle it’s way quicker at stopping through the stop button than it is through the kill power as it has a electronic brake function…
William,
That’s one way to look at it. On the other hand, Carbide could give the customer the oppotion to easily install an aftermarket e-stop post purchase. In business and in life when presented with a hypothetical situation involving risk of injury I’ve believe it is best err on the side of caution.
I hope carbide will reconsider this business in future iterations of the board.
I should imagine that you could gain several levels of convenience by bringing the start and stop from that unit out to the front panel and insuring that the kill all doeesn’t kill power to the spindle immediately (maybe power the spindle through a 1 or 2 second time delay relay, and have a DP ESTOP that triggers the braking feature, so the braking can halt the spindle before the power is cut)
Eni_public,
Smart idea. The Shapeoko is a power tool and requires a degree of caution, attention to details and care.
That being said, no matter how experienced and cautious you are there’s always the opportunity for something to go wrong. It is important to have a good plan in place for how to safely shut down the machine in when something goes wrong.
Of this I am fully aware. One hat I wear is safety and compliance. I am not an expert (we can hire those when we need), but after almost 20 years of it (between the railroad and the shipyard), I have a pretty good understanding of accepted practice. Guards and interlocks first, and ESTOP as a backup. If I were specifying or designing an installation for the machine in the commercial world (in the US), it would be enclosed, have, as a minimum, a switch to apply the spindle brake and stop all motion when the enclosure is opened, and an ESTOP that forces the same, as well as cuts power. A service stop doesn’t cut power, and preserves state, but the ESTOP need not.
Then, after install, I would call the insurance inspector so that if I missed anything, it would get caught, and, if not caught, we would be covered by the insurance. There is nothing worse than finding out the insurance won;t pay, or restricts payment, (workman’s comp, even) due to a negligence concern (seen it from the outside, but, fortunately, never been there)
Agreed.
At one point in time there was a power strip which integrated an E-stop button — I believe it’s still available in Europe, but maybe not. Not seeing a product listing for:
Knurr DI-STRIP Protector Emergency Stop Fl/LS
If my machine were mounted to a table I’d wire all the power through:
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