Light Curtain Tailored for Safeguarding Hydraulic Press Brakes

ISB, Lachine, Quebec, Canada, has introduced the MX 4300 series of light curtains for guarding hydraulic press brakes. The newly designed light curtain incorporates a dual-channel linear encoder designed to monitor the position and speed of the ram.

When a sheetmetal part is being processed in a press brake, it usually blocks one or more beams of a light curtain’s protective field. Due to the nature of the fabrication process (e.g. multiple bends and flanges), the blocked areas may change from one operation to the next, making it difficult for a conventional guarding system to provide adequate protection without reducing the usability and productivity of the machine.

The MX4300, by ensuring that the dangerous part of the machine always moves at a safe speed when it is moving through the blanked area, provides an effective reduction of the risks associated with the intrusion of limbs behind the shadow created by a blanked flange, without hampering throughput. The MX4300 also takes advantage of its integral position transducer to provide an automatic muting function of the light curtain’s protective field without requiring the use of external limit switches or additional muting sensors.

MX4300 light curtain units are available in two physical resolutions while the protective-field height covers 300 to 1200 mm.