Safety light curtains, also known as safety light grids, are a type of safety protection product. The working principle involves an emitter and a receiver that emit and detect infrared beams. When any beam is obstructed, a signal is generated to stop the equipment, thus providing safety protection.
The advancement of industrial automation, while providing abundant material resources for human life, has gradually become a "double-edged sword" threatening personal safety. The frequent occurrence of production accidents has led to increased attention to safety in the production process. Tens of thousands of operators are injured every year due to machinery. In order to prevent human errors, ensure the safety of the production process, and improve production efficiency, safety light curtains have been developed. Safety light curtains can inherently reduce the occurrence of accidents and benefit the company, operators, and society.
Safety light curtains have a wide range of applications. For example, in stamping equipment that requires continuous material feeding and retrieval, if contact-type safety doors are installed, operators need to frequently open and close the protective doors, which not only increases their workload but also reduces production efficiency. In such cases, using light grids and light curtains is the best choice. When operators are feeding or retrieving materials, if any part of their body blocks the light beam, the machine will enter a safe state without causing harm to the operator. The density of the light beams determines the size of the body part that can pass through the light curtain and be detected.
Main industries where safety light curtains are widely used include forging machine tools, automobile manufacturing, hardware stamping, laser cutting machines, bending machines, computer accessories, electronics factories, plastic machinery, paper cutting machines, automation equipment, hydraulic machinery, robots, industrial manipulators, packaging equipment, production lines, automated parking garages, and other automation equipment. They can also be used for multi-area protection or anti-theft purposes.
Nine precautions when using safety light curtains:
1. Use your hand to block the light curtain and observe if the indicator lights switch normally.
2. Do not arbitrarily change the position of the light curtain during its use.
3. Within the protected area, if the light curtain is blocked by hand, the machine should immediately stop working.
4. When the slide block is at the bottom dead center (180 degrees), blocking the light curtain should cause the machine's slide block to return.
5. For presses that can only provide protection at the top dead center, if the slide block stops at the top dead center and blocks the light curtain, the next operation cannot be started.
6. After changing the mold, the safety distance and position of the protective device must be adjusted by specialized personnel.
7. When disassembling or installing the light curtain and transmission lines, turn off the power first. It must be operated by professionals to avoid accidents.
8. Check if the emitter and receiver of the light curtain are accurately assembled with their respective cables, and if the cable connections are correctly connected to the power supply and controller.
9. When the power is connected to the safety light curtain sensor, it starts self-checking, synchronizing, and self-calibrating. After about 1 second, if the emitter's yellow indicator light is stable and the receiver's indicator lights are all off, it indicates that the light curtain sensor has entered normal working state.
