SICK Lightguards

Sick Lightguards

Light guards are opto-electronic devices that are used to safeguard personnel in the vicinity of moving machinery with the potential to cause harm such as presses, winders and palletisers.

Light guards can be used as an alternative to mechanical barriers and other forms of traditional machine guarding.

By reducing the need for physical guards and barriers, light curtains can increase the maintainability of the equipment they are guarding.

The operability and efficiency of machinery can also be improved by the use of light guards by, for example, allowing easier access for semi-automatic procedures.

One of our recent projects was a safety upgrade for Whirlpool Indesit UK– a long-time client of DBI Control and one Europe’s leading manufacturers of major domestic appliances including washing machines, fridges and cookers.

Indesit asked if DBI Control were able to manufacture light guarding to protect a machine operator from direct contact to machinery during electrical safety testing.

The conveyor needed protection and space for 6 bays, so after Indesit supplied drawings we were able to start get a quote together.

The agreed price included DBI Control supplying the hardware, manufacturing labour, installation and all certification and documentation.

A risk assessment displayed that the current system needed some improvements to meet EN standards, and we provided schematics to show how we proposed to enhance the current structure to make it a less hazardous zone.

For the safety sensors, DBI Control chose to use SICK miniTwin2 Safety Light Curtains to provide a highly effective and reliable way to protect hazardous areas.

The compact size of the miniTwin2 Safety Light Curtains meant we could install with flexibility and the range of protection was ideal for application in this industrial setting, and found a SICK Mounting system to suit.

Aside from SICK products, we also needed

• Item Aluminium Profile
• Aluminium Angle
• Steel Feet
• Polycarbonate safety Sheets

With this project we were able to do the majority of the work in-house.

The mechanical fixed guarding was manufactured to protect areas where there would be workers, and integrated the SICK Light curtains to link them together.

Once everything was manufactured in our workshop, we travelled to the Indesit site in Bristol and had an overnight stay to make certain there was plenty of time for installation and to conduct tests to check everything was working as planned.

SICKs innovative products teamed with DBI Controls extensive knowledge and expertise created the perfect solution for Indesit which will protect their employees’ health and safety and the running of the company.