[labnetwork] Suggestions for interlocking fume hoods

[Weaver, John R]

We have struggled with this as well and have opted not to interlock them.
The best approach we came up with was to interlock the lights in the hood. It wouldn't really inhibit the users, but would be very noticeable if someone was working in a hood with the lights off. We didn't really think that it would have a safety impact, but that was a concern - reading bottle labels, etc.

John

From: labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu [mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu] On Behalf Of Vito Logiudice
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2015 1:16 PM
To: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu
Subject: [labnetwork] Suggestions for interlocking fume hoods

Dear Colleagues,

Our efforts to physically interlock our tools via our lab management platform (Badger in our case) is progressing well. In most cases we are interlocking computer monitors, keyboards or computer mice with good results.

My team and I have discussed how to best interlock our numerous fume hoods but were unable to settle on any one approach. For safety reasons we certainly do not want to make the hoods entirely unavailable when not enabled by Badger; ie., we want to encourage their use when lab users handle chemicals. However we do believe it would be beneficial to physically interlock them in some fashion to at least make them somewhat less appealing to use unless they are first enabled. I've searched past threads on this fantastic network and while I came across some great related discussions I was unable to find anything which dealt specifically with hood interlocks.

I'd greatly appreciate hearing from those of you whom have interlocked your hoods or are thinking of doing so soon. I'm curious to know what service or feature you may have tapped into on a typical hood setup that might include some combination of spin-coaters, hot plates, heated/recirculating chemical baths, N2 guns, DI guns etc.

Thanks very much for any insights.

Best regards,
Vito
--
Vito Logiudice  P.Eng.
Director of Operations, Quantum NanoFab
University of Waterloo
Lazaridis QNC 1207
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, ON           Canada N2L 3G1
Tel.: (519) 888-4567  ext. 38703
Email: vito.logiudice at uwaterloo.ca<mailto:vito.logiudice at uwaterloo.ca>
Website: https://fab.qnc.uwaterloo.ca

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mtl.mit.edu/pipermail/labnetwork/attachments/20150916/a0b163fc/attachment.html>