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Safety Equipment
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Complete Enclosures- Physical barrier that prohibits people from entering the robots work space. Entry is accessed through a door when the robot is not running. We prefer to manufacture complete enclosures using the 8020 extruded aluminum erector sets along with either Plexiglas, or steel mesh. This is easy to construct and we have found it to be customizable for almost every application. These need to be coupled with proper lockout-tagout procedures in order to ensure that the robot cell isn't started while someone is inside. Maintenance can be difficult since physical walls can be hard to get
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Floor scanners- These scanners look at all of the floor space around the robots and slow the robots down as someone enters the scan area, and stops when they get in the robots reach. This ensures that people can't get hurt by the robot while still providing access to the work area. These sensors are our preferred way of safeguarding the robot while still complying with the ISO/TS 15066:2016 robot safety standards.
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Light curtains- Light curtains are like an invisible wall that if the light is broken then the robot stops. These are a good solution, but similar to complete enclosures they need a way to ensure that no one is in the cell when the robots are started up again. Light curtains coupled with floor scanners provide a completely safe solution that still provides great access.
Dual Check Safety
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There are two ways that we at Design For Making goes about ensuring that your robots don’t interfere with other machines, or with other neighboring robots. First is Fanuc’s Dual Check safety constantly evaluates each robot’s position and creates a “buffer” around the moving robot that communicates with the other robot to ensure that neither is in the other’s safely zone.
Another method of doing this is to create position registers in the robot code that stores where each robot is located, and won’t let another robot into those areas if a robot is already there. This also is a way of linking the robot to an external machine such as a cnc machine.
Custom Automated Solutions
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We also use combinations PLC controllers, micro controllers, and motors to automate things that don't make sense to do so with a robotic arm. This includes periphery equipment such as conveyors, pneumatic actuators, hydraulic systems, and so on.