Infeed on the stacker. SICK deTec4 curtain, 30 mm resolution, about 900 mm of protected field, six years on there. Fabricators reworked the guarding over the weekend, new mesh panels and brackets, and Monday the curtain won't reset. Receiver display shows one beam interrupted, the top one, steady, nobody in the field.
I cleaned both lenses and ran the alignment aid, green on every beam but the top one. Our SICK rep says it's alignment from the guard being moved, then said the curtain "could blank that beam" in software if it's a fixed object.
There's a new bracket bolted to the curtain post that sticks maybe 50 mm into the field, right at the top. My money's on that, not alignment, but the rep sounded sure.
Fabricators are back Tuesday. Is blanking a beam something I should let him do, or am I missing something obvious?
Seen this one. Our fabricators bolted a mesh bracket to the curtain post on the palletizer, same thing, one beam out. Is the bracket between the sender and the receiver, in the field? Then the curtain's telling you the truth.
Between them, yes, top of the field. Two inches of angle iron. Alignment aid says every other beam is fine, so it's not that the columns moved.
Then the curtain is right and the rep is wrong about alignment. A beam with steel in it is a blocked beam.
Two ways out. Move the bracket. Or fixed blanking on that beam, which the deTec4 can do from Safety Designer, I think, someone check me. But once you blank a beam you've made a hole in the protective field, and that hole has to be guarded physically so nobody reaches through where the beam used to be. It goes into the validation file, the effective resolution of the curtain changes, so the safety distance calculation changes with it. That's a document, a guard, a recalculation and a re-test. Moving a bracket is two bolts.
Move the bracket.
Blanking is paperwork and a guard. Moving steel is two bolts.
Meanwhile I tilted the bracket on its slots so it's mostly out of the field. Display says beam clear, curtain resets. Line's still stopped, I haven't run anything. Good enough till Tuesday or not?
No. "Mostly" out of a field is an object the curtain half sees. One forklift bump on the post and you're down again, or worse, the beam reads clear with the bracket at the edge. Bracket off the post entirely, even if it means the mesh panel leans on a chain till Tuesday.
Took the bracket off the post last night, mesh panel tied back. Curtain reset first go. Fabricators moved the bracket to the guard frame this morning, nothing in the field, all beams green, no blanking, nothing to write up.
Turned out to be exactly what it looked like. The new bracket was sitting in the top beam, and getting it off the curtain post was the whole job, no blanking, no paperwork.
Nobody drew that bracket on the post, the fabricators just found something solid to bolt to. And I still don't know why the rep went to alignment when his own display was telling him a beam was blocked. Thanks danr40 and carlh.
Fabricators bolt to whatever's standing there. Every time.