Project Details

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Child Safe Roller Shade Lift Chain Mechanism

Company: Fabtex, Inc.

Major(s):
Primary: ME
Secondary: IE
Optional: BME

Non-Disclosure Agreement: NO

Intellectual Property: YES

Child Safe Blind Pulls Retrofit: Fabtex is a manufacturer of roller shades for the hospitality, healthcare, and cruise ship industries. The main portion of our business comes from custom orders submitted by various hotel brands. New regulations have been released aimed at child safety regarding the pull chains on shades and blinds and their role as a potential choking hazard. Both manufacturers and hotel brands are scrambling to find a fix for the future of the product as well as a retrofit to their current treatment in order to become compliant with the new regulations. Simple cordless designs that work in many residential applications simply will not withstand commercial use. The first commercial solutions have been presented as chain guards by many of the component manufacturers. Initial reaction is that this is a simple fix that still may lend to functionality issues as well as being clunky and not aesthetically pleasing. There is an opportunity to create a retrofit solution that will reach across all markets including residential and commercial markets. Fabtex would like a solution that: • Is functional, economical, reliable, and aesthetically pleasing, and; • Includes a safety feature that would break should a child become entangled and indicates if the integrity of the chain has been compromised. This project will involve design of a solution culminating in a workable prototype.