Doug White wrote:
I have a new progressive reloading press (a Dillon XL650), which has an
automatic alarm device to tell you when the powder hopper is getting low.
It's basically a weighted piston that rides on top of the powder, and
when it gets down far enough, a knob on top hits a switch & the alarm
goes off. I'd like to store the thing in the hopper, but there's no off
switch.

I can easily make a small block (~ 3/4" cube) with a notch cut in it that
will hold the knob up high enough to miss the switch. However, I'd like
to make it highly visible as a reminder to remove it before use. I could
dangle a red tag off of it, but making it out of something like bright
red or yellow plastic would work OK. The catch is that I don't have any
eye catching colorful plastic in suitable blocks.

I checked McMaster Carr, and they have red Turcite in 1" rods ($$$, and
I'm not sure how red it is), red acrylic in sheets only, and the yellow
they have is Kevlar, which isn't a good screaming yellow, and could be
nasty to machine.

There are lots of options, from cutting up a small red aerosol can cap,
to paint or tape on any miscellaneous plastic. Paint or tape will
probably chip or peel over time. I have red & yellow caplugs that I
could make a solid core for, or I could find a piece of bright plastic to
use as a "flag" on a more boring colored plug. Nothing I've come up with
so far has set off my "tidy & effective solution" detector.

This is hardly a major project of any great import, but if anyone has any
ideas they'd like to suggest, I'd be happy to add them to the options
collection.

How about a more physical lockout? Is this gizmo lever actuated? Could
your block have a string on it, and could that string hold the lever
such that you can't run the machine with the string in place?

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com