Safeguard workers with safety light curtains

The Allen-Bradley GuardShield™ Light Curtains offer the latest technology including the first CIP Safety over Ethernet module on the market along with integrated laser alignment, muting, blanking and cascading.

Is it time to review the safety of workers at your production facility?

Light curtains are an essential safety mechanism in a manufacturing plant, particularly one that requires cutting and chopping before packaging a final product. Staff need access to the product without having to regularly open and close a guard, which is where GuardShield Safety Light Curtains come in.

The GuardShield range of light curtains, available through NHP, has an innovative design that not only ensures the safety of your personnel but also cuts down on maintenance and spare parts.

GuardShield is the first range of safety light curtains on the market to have integrated CIP safety over EtherNet modules, which will provide detailed diagnostics and status information to Logix DLR to cascade to multiple 450 L or other EtherNet/IP products.

Most light curtains on the market contain a transmitter and receiver stick, but the GuardShield curtain leverages patented plug-in transceiver technology. Each stick can be used as a transmitter or receiver via innovative plug-in modules, resulting in fewer parts being required.

To significantly reduce engineering effort, The GuardShield range was designed with embedded functions that are configured quickly and easily via DIP switches or software, including muting, blanking, start mode, external device monitoring and scanning ranges.

The GuardShield range also features an enhanced Integrated Laser Alignment System (ILAS) for quick installation and reliable operation, which significantly reduces installation and alignment labour time. This amounts to significant cost savings when installing across multiple locations, not to mention improved up-time regarding maintenance and hardware-replacement efforts.

The units come in different lengths ranging from 150 mm up to 1950 mm — in multiples of 150 mm in both 30 mm hand and 14 mm finger resolutions. There are no dead spots (passive zones) at the top or bottom of the stick, which means they can be installed inside a machine frame and do not have to be mounted outside/on the machine like a traditional light curtain system.

For more information on the most advanced safety light curtain on the market, please call your local NHP specialist on 1300 NHP NHP or email us.