A functional control panel at my dentist office
Posted Mar 10, 2023, 1:42 AM UTC
45515
Like something straight out of Star Trek.
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Blue, AmberAmber, Red
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Just watched that episode the other day!
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My modern dentists office has the same thing, but ya know, modern. It’s used to indicate the current status of each patient room “hygienist cleaning” “ready for dentist” “bring to x-ray” etc.
Given how jumbled the colors are, I presume it’s due to difficulty finding replacement parts. They probably recognize the function based on light position than color.
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This come out of an Altair computer?
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Is your dentist a Sleestak?
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That's a much more complex system than I've usually seen (I own a dental focused msp and have been in hundreds of dental offices) but the light system is extremely common. Usually 1 light per chair if it's lit solid means a patient is in the chair, blinking means the doctor has been requested to that chair, fast blinking means "doctor get here asap" and off means an empty chair. All modern dental software has this functionality built in.
You can see the chair labels in this picture I'd be very interested in speaking to the doctor who originally had it installed to know what each light meant but I'd imagine they were also somewhat of a control freak if each of the different lights represents a different treatment that's a level of tracking I've never seen.
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I also see labels for Patient, Lab, and Assistant on the far left. So maybe more fine grained call lights for specific people. Maybe patient calls for dentist vs. the assistant?
I also see a metal toggle switch, one in each room I believe, with two chairs in each? A shutoff for gas/oxygen for the room?
And of course, since the panel does appear to be old but functional, some of the buttons/lights may be under different use today than originally intended. Lab may have originally summoned someone from the lab to get specimens, but today the lab work is sent out and these days that light means "room is gonna need extra cleaning after" or maybe it's just no longer in use.
Very cool panel though, I'd love to see more of the set up and connections.
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Those are old mil-spec indicator lights with a switch that must control something. I count 8 banks. What are they indicating? call status, etc. from different rooms?
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...so many shiny lights... I don't know what it's for, but I want it.
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Dentist 1999
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[deleted]
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I wanna press them all
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[deleted]
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Those buttons are just gorgeus!
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Less buttons were used to put man on the Moon.
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I'd love to see more detail on this all.
Seems like having different colors in different places would make this thing hard to intuitively interpret.