Do you have or use a kill switch on your equipment? That is not the on off switch, but a when things go wrong kill switch that shuts down a piece of equipment, multiple pieces of equipment, a section of the shop, or the entire shop?

It should be located away from the equipment for use in an emergency. Clearly mark it to say what it controls. In am emergency, you can then kill the electric to the equipment without having to get near the equipment, such as if someone were to get caught up in a lathe, power hammer, etc. 

 

If you want you can use the same idea to kill all electric going to the overhead lights, and another switch to kill all electric to the shop itself. Flip both switches and you can sleep well at night.

Good point Glenn. I have a deadman foot switch that would be great to run inline with my 1hp buffer grinder with wire wheels on it. My grandfather already had a deadman switch hooked up to the drillpress.  As far as anything else there is really nothing else that needs something like that. I can shut the whole garage electric down from the breaker board in my house.

On CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machines, we have the Ubiquitous Red Mushroom. It is located on the Controller, and stops all motion for example, on a two story machine with a 700 foot square foot print.

Then there is a main breaker adjacent to each machine, and blocking access to these, is prohibited.

A little different from the subpanel you want inside the shop at the main entrance. 

Woof, I am a big fan of deadman interlocks, I love chain brakes on a chainsaw.

Robert Taylor

The only thing that uses electricity in my shop (other than the lights and the ventilation fan) is the forge blower, and I've been thinking I should put a deadman switch on that.

As of now I do not have any equipment that would benefit from an emergency shut off. I do have a main breaker right by the door as you enter/exit the shop as well as one on the power pole that feeds it. I don't think I actually need to shut it off every time I leave but I have gotten in the habit anyway. I do have a couple electrical shut offs that I plan to utilize when the right equipment does make its way to my shop.