door interlocks

Don't want to hijack a thread so I started a new one. With all the safety Nazi's out there and OSHA laws it just really surprised me when I bought my first (used) CNC a few years ago. My 1995 YCI Supermax Rebel 1 YMC has no door lock or interlock what-so-ever. There are no un-used holes where one was removed either. Just seemed weird for a machine sold in the USA to not have a safety on the door.

There was a time in this country when a company could build a machine and put in the instructions "qualified personnel only" and anyone that got hurt running it was yelled at for doing something stupid. Now lawyers encourage stupid behavior because it gets them rich.

Thank You, Randy

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I mentioned in the earlier thread that I'd once done some consulting work with attorneys involved in machine tool liability cases. In one case, someone was hurt on a very old Mazak engine lathe. In addition to paying a huge money award to the injured worker, Mazak was ordered to put warning stickers on its machines, to make sure people knew what was dangerous, what not to touch, etc. I'm not sure; but I suspect that this case was at least part of the beginning of the trend toward putting those little graphic decals all over every part of machine, warning about all the ways you can get hurt.

A few years later (a case I wasn't directly involved in) Mazak got sued again over an injury, and a machine, that were similar to the case described above, except that the machine was fairly new. Mazak's attorneys pointed out to the court that they'd complied with the earlier ruling, and put safety stickers on all the dangerous parts of everything. The plaintiff's case became instantly perfect. Mazak knew the machine was dangerous, and knew all the ways it was dangerous, and the stickers proved it. But they built and sold the machine anyway.

Mazak lost, and got to make a millionaire out of another person who didn't think it was his job to keep from getting his arm ripped off.