Electrical Lockout Box

While most of my work in my role as a marine engineer was behind a computer, I was also responsible for our office's small prototyping space. When tasked with implementing a lockout system for some power tools, I designed and 3d printed simple lockout boxes.  It took me about one hour from starting with a napkin sketch to pressing "start" on the 3d printer. It is satisfying to have the skills to quickly design a practical model, and to have a good enough understanding of 3d printer tolerances and settings for everything to turned out as intended first try.

The boxes can be used with a small lock, or simply with a hex bolt to keep people honest by requiring them to use a tool to bypass this safety measure.

Of course, we could have purchased off-the-shelf lockout boxes, but 3D printing was fast and it is easy to print addition boxes as needed.