Product category:
Machine Safety Components
News Release from: OEM Automatic | Subject: Safety light curtains with blanking
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 17 November 2005
Blanking makes curtains more flexible
Safety light curtains with blanking are available from OEM Automatic.
Safety light curtains with blanking are available from OEM Automatic Blanking is an auxiliary function of safety light curtains in which the introduction of an opaque object within part of the light curtain's protection field is permitted without causing the machine to come to a stop
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 14 Apr 2000 at 8.00am (UK)
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Blanking should only be used when in the presence of determined safety conditions, and in accordance with appropriate operating logic.
The blanking function is particularly useful when the application requires that the light curtain's protection field is inevitably intercepted by the material being worked on or by a fixed or mobile part of the machine.
The blanking function therefore makes it possible to keep the light curtain's safety outputs in an on condition, and keep the machine working, even if a predetermined number of beams within the protection field are being intercepted.
Fixed blanking allows a fixed portion of the protection field (ie a fixed set of beams) to be occupied, while the remaining beams all operate normally with no loss of the safety function.
Floating blanking allows an object to move freely inside the light curtains protection field occupying a given number of beams, providing that the occupied beams are adjacent and that their number is not greater than the configured one.
Floating blanking with compulsory object presence enables the light curtain to work in a reverse way within the blanked portion of the protection field.
This means that the blanked beams must be occupied during blanking and therefore the object has to be inside the protection field for the light curtain to remain in the on state.
In this scenario the object can move freely within the protection field if the above conditions are respected.
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