[Chris D]

I am surprised the safety police have not come running already about this thread. It seems as though many people believe that there should be absolutely no chance of being hurt no matter what they do.

E-Stops are good, they are highly visible and, if placed in a good spot, easy to HIT when needed. On my hobby machine, I have used it a couple of times to prevent the machine from doing something I didn't think it should - mostly during initial testing after construction.

On industrial machines, I don't recall hitting E-Stops for much of anything. It was always easier to hit Feed-Hold and or Reset to stop the machine and deal with the problems in that manor.

As for hitting E-Stop to prevent harm to myself, never. If I am near something that can hurt me (on my machine or on most industrial machines), chances are you can't get to the E-Stop button anyway.

If you look at industrial machines, the E-Stop is usually located outside the work area where, from operating the machine, you can see & hit the E-Stop. From that position, it is rare you could hurt yourself - you are not in the work area where things can hurt you. During setup, when your hands are inside the work area where there are moving parts and such, there is generally no E-stop that you can get at - doesn't make much sense for personal safety does it. So, my observation is that E-Stops are put on machinery not to protect the operator from harm, but to protect the machine from harm.

Kind of put's things into perspective as to what (rather than who) is being protected by the machinery builders and safety police.