New Hams and Safety with Electronics Projects
The August, 2019 issue of “Metal Forming Magazine” reminds readers of the importance of wearing safety glasses. This reminder is important to Hams - new & old, who work on electronics projects or ‘kits’ which involve soldering.
Americans surveyed reported that losing eyesight would potentially have “the greatest impact on their day-to-day life, more so than other conditions including loss of a limb, memory, hearing and speech,” according to a poll conducted by Research!America and vision-research organizations.
With that in mind, this month we summarize for Hams the five tips Honeywell offers that can help manufacturing workers and Hams to remember to wear their eye protection.
1. Keep your safety glasses near your tools. Keeping everything together in one place helps you remember your eyewear. If your safety glasses are near your project and supplies, then you will have a better chance of remembering to use your eyewear.
2. Don’t take them off. Wearing your safety glasses during breaks or interruptions could cause you to forget to put them back on when you resume your work.
3. Select comfortable, trendy styles. As you can see at most Ham gatherings, Hams don’t concern themselves with ‘style.’ However, newer, stylish versions of eye protection are also more comfortable and reduce the urge to take them off. Gone are the one-size-doesn’t-fit-all offerings of past years.
4. Listen to reminders. Along with those ‘wacky warning labels’ we see on today’s products and instructions are reminders to use eye protection. The eye protection reminder is there for a good reason.
5. Enjoy the benefits. In industrial settings, workers may be provided incentives for complying with use of protective equipment requirements. At home, Hams will benefit from the knowledge that the worst that can happen is that project or kit might not ‘turn out just right.’
We thank Martin Reid N6QU for these notes!