Just Wondering

[Dale Lesak]

How many of your shops have emergency lighting for when the power goes out in the shop. Had this happen the other night while working with the table saw. A little tense for a while. I'll be looking for some used units coming out of old buildings.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

If you're a home hobbyist, you might want to look into a plug-in rechargable flashlight. When the power goes out, the flashlight turns on (when plugged into the wall). It also works like a regular handheld flashlight. Charger and plug is built into the light; very compact. Mine was about $25. A handy gizmo, especially when looking for those little draw slide screws that fell on the floor!

-Jeff

[Jim Nardi]

The battery pack goes south after they have been unplugged for a while. As long as you have a mag switch on your saw so it doesn't restart I don't see a problem.

[Ed Falis]

Something that's even cooler is the LED flashlight that you charge by shaking it. It's got some kind of magnetic coil mechanism inside that does the job. We have two or three of them. Not a whole lot of light out of them, but more than enough for emergencies and casual flashlight use.

[Mickey Finn]

Why tense? A 4 D-Cell Mag-Light will light the way, and you can use it to club any baddies that might invade at a moment's notice.

[Randy Denby]

I can see where that would be kinda tense.....power goes out,your in the dark, but still having a coasting down spinning saw blade somewhere near your hands. It would be kinda scairy....best bet is to stay still until the blade stops of course.But, Now I'm gonna be on the lookout for one of those emergency lights as well. I've seen them discarded in commercial remodels.

[glenn bradley]

I keep at least some lights on the house power. That way if I should ever pop the breaker on the subpanel, I still have lights. You don't want your tools and your lights sharing a circuit anyway, eh?

[Ern Gumban]

I keep a mini mag-light in my tool pouch just for that. I also have a battery powered LED barbecue grill light on my table saw. It has a long neck, a C-clamp, and magnetic base. I either clamp it to the fence/crosscut sled, or put the mag base on the saw table. HD and Walmart have them.

http://www.amazon.com/Designers-Edge...1870629&sr=8-3

They are admittedly low tech, but it has worked for me while working at night when the breaker goes.

Ern

[Jason Hanna]

I don't think we're talking about popping a breaker here. Dale has a very good point that what happens when you are at the table saw and the power goes completely out.

A wall pack like you see in all commercial buildings could be a very good idea. They have a battery that stays charged and are connected to the power source. Power goes out, battery kicks in, no spinning blades in the dark.

Heck, I might like it with a motion detector so I don't have to turn on the flourescent sun just to retreive a screw driver.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I can see where that would be kinda tense.....power goes out,your in the dark, but still having a coasting down spinning saw blade somewhere near your hands.

Happened to me once. The solution was so elegantly simple and self effectuating that I didn't realize that it was even a problem until i read this thread.

My saw blade didn't coast down because when the power died I was feeding stock into it. The pressure of the wood against the blade stopped the blade dead.

Now a big heavy band saw might run on a bit from the inertia on the cast iron wheels.

[John Gregory]

I have one of those wall packs, I bought it at HD for about $40. I test it on a regular basis

[Larry Fox]

Personally, I actually think that an emergency light might be a bad idea in the shop for the sole reason that I think if the power went out and the light kicked on after a very short interval it might actually cause you to redirect your attention. Thinking about how I unconsciously react when the lights go out I tend to just remain still for a second to access the situation. I think that this would, to Cliff's point, allow the blade to spin down. If I am being careful before the lights go out I know that my hands aren't going to be close to the blade and the lights going out are not going to bring them closer. Now, thinking about how I react when the lights go out for a split second and come back on, my natural reaction is to look up / around to see what happened - because there is light and I can see - which naturally draws my attention away from the saw.

Now a flashlight is another matter - I think there should be one at hand so you can walk around and investigate easily.

[Randy Denby]

Happened to me once. The solution was so elegantly simple and self effectuating that I didn't realize that it was even a problem until i read this thread.

My saw blade didn't coast down because when the power died I was feeding stock into it. The pressure of the wood against the blade stopped the blade dead.

Now a big heavy band saw might run on a bit from the inertia on the cast iron wheels.

Makes good sense. AS you can tell by my reply, I was just commenting on how I percieved it could happen . I've never had it happen to me.Could still happen that way I guess, depending on the operation and where you were when the power kicks off....say if you just finished ripping or crosscutting a piece.But then, you wouldnt have a threat of kickback at that point, so you could remove your hands safely. I'll be on the lookout for a discarded battery back up light at those remodels anyhow,just wont pay big bucks for one .

[Kent Fitzgerald]

Another approach: if you have flourescent shop lights, you could plug a few of them into an uninterruptible power supply.

[Norman Hitt]

Personally, I actually think that an emergency light might be a bad idea in the shop for the sole reason that I think if the power went out and the light kicked on after a very short interval it might actually cause you to redirect your attention. .

Larry, I don't know if all the emergency Battery Pack lights are made the same, but we had them in the Air Force in the operations room, (and scattered about the building. There was NO interval between the power failure and the time the light came on. They were the ones that used a 12 volt car type battery in a stainless steel case with two bulbs mounted on top. The trickle charger was built into the circuit and the normal line voltage powered a relay that sent power to the trickle charger, but when line voltage was lost, the relay instantly opened the charger ckt, and closed the battery to lamp ckt. There was NO delay, but since there was only two bulbs, it would not be as bright as a room full of flourescent light fixtures.