Muting is the safe, automatic and temporary bridging of a non-contact protective device - usually in the form of light curtains, light barriers, light curtains or laser scanners - during operation. For example, material can be transported into or out of a hazardous area. During the muting cycle, which consists of four phases, this must be made known to the surroundings with a muting lamp. Pilz, the specialist for safety and automation solutions, is now offering new types of muting arms for its PSENopt IIAb safety light curtains, with which the muting function can be set up completely flexibly for the first time, according to Pilz.

Stepless adjustment for different protective fields

The new muting arms from Pilz are mounted directly on the PSENopt II safety light grids or alternatively on the protective column of the light grid. They are attached using sliding blocks, which can be mounted horizontally along the complete groove of the safety light grid or on the protective column. In this way, continuous adjustment of the desired height is possible. The positions of the muting sensors can be defined in accordance with the IEC 62046 standard. As a result, numerous configurations can be created safely and highly flexibly. Users benefit in particular from the fact that different protective fields can be configured for L-, T- and X-muting. In this way, requirements can be implemented in an application-specific manner. Depending on the application, a complete set of accessories with muting sensors and reflectors is available in each case. Adaptations can be flexibly implemented at any time - even at a later date.

Suitable even for the harshest applications

The safety light grids of the PSENopt II product family offer finger, hand and body protection for applications up to PL e in accordance with EN ISO 13849 and are available in lengths from 150 to 1800 millimeters. Just like the safety light grids themselves, the new muting arms are extremely insensitive to shock, collision and vibration thanks to their robust design, making them ideal for use in harsh industrial environments. Equipped with a shock resistance of 10 g (unit for acceleration due to gravity), they even meet the requirements of a shock load in accordance with the EN 60068-2-27 standard.

Solution package for efficient muting

Particularly for the infeed and outfeed of material or material handling in human-robot collaboration (HRC), the muting solution package comprising PSENopt II safety light grids, the appropriate muting arms and the safe PNOZmulti 2 mini control system from Pilz enables efficient production without unnecessary downtime. Corresponding function blocks for muting applications with PSENopt II safety light grids are available in the software tool of the mini control system PNOZmulti Configurator. Applications such as monitoring conveyor belts and palletisers or outfeed control for packages should therefore be able to be implemented in an even more application-specific and productive manner.

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