When working at The Home Depot I often had to caution children away from the cable cutters. Too many times I saw children putting their fingers near the jaws of the cutter and the moving the handles. We never had any injuries while I was there but there were a number of "close calls."

To prevent injury I developed this safety cable cutter device. Here's how it works:

When the green LED (Light Emitting Diode) is on the cutters are in place out of reach of children and the alarm buzzer is disabled (stays off).

If the cutters are removed the alarm buzzer will sound. To prevent the alarm buzzer from sounding the store number 4026* must be entered on the keypad at the lower right hand corner of the mounting platform.

When the number is entered correctly the red LED will turn on. This indicates that the user has three (3) minutes to replace the cutters in the holder or the alarm buzzer will sound.

Previously (one photo) the cutters were hung on the wire measuring device with the sharp jaws partially open within easy reach of small children. The cutter safety device places the cutters out of the reach of children as well as discourages customers from cutting their own wire.

This is not a costly or complicated device. In production it would probably sell for $75-150 depending on the quality and number of features. In fact, just the fact that customers would be discouraged from stealing wire could pay for it in a few weeks.