Why light curtains provide immense value
The safety of personnel is of the utmost importance to all, but when it comes to industrial systems, it’s even greater. Light Curtains, also called light screens or optical guards, are a useful technique of safeguarding personnel around industrial equipment. A Light Curtain uses a photoelectric transmitter that projects an array of synchronized, parallel infrared light beams to a receiver unit. When a dense object breaks one or more of the beams projected, the light curtain controller sends a stop signal to the industrial equipment in use.
The light curtain market
Control Design recently broached this topic in a January article. While the safety light curtain was the main issue, the article explored multilingual offerings and issues surrounding them.
“Although manufacturers of safety equipment typically translate their manuals into languages native to the areas where they are used, operators of the equipment may be left scratching their heads when the safety manual is mistakenly provided in the wrong language or gets misplaced.”
How ICR repairs light curtains
ICR adheres to technical standards when repairing these essential industrial equipment safeguards. Using a robotic arm, an ICR technician tests the light curtain to verify if the light beams projected can break as intended. Then he will also check that the controller is receiving the signals sent. The test system records “breaks and resets” data and prints it out on a verification report. When ICR receives an incoming unit, a technician will run a test using diagnostic equipment to troubleshoot and pinpoint the problem areas. After the diagnostic evaluation period has concluded, cleaning and dis-assembly occur to ensure a quality repair. The next step is initiating ICR’s Preventive Maintenance, which includes replacement of all worn or faulty components especially those known to fail commonly. The repair process continues as a technician qualifies each unit in ICR’s dedicated test cell for light curtains. In this test cell, a robot runs a reliable repair and proper functionality of the safety device.
