Are Omron STI light curtains OSHA approved?

OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) does not approve products. OSHA sets safety standards which manufacturers use as guidelines when designing products. Other organizations such as the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) also publish safety standards that are generally recognized by industry in the United States. Omron Scientific Technologies, Inc. light curtains meet or exceed these standards.

What is IEC61496?

With the advent of the European Common Market, safety regulations are being harmonized between all member nations. The standard of concern to most light curtain users is IEC61496. This standard comes in two parts. Part 1 involves the general requirements and functional testing for a light curtain while Part 2 spells out specific requirements.

Why does Omron STI offer so many different light curtain models?

Hazardous situations come in all shapes and sizes. No one light curtain is capable of guarding all of them effectively. That’s why Omron STI offers the widest range of light curtains available. From the elegant, full-featured MicroSafe to Explosion-proof curtains, Omron STI is able to meet your needs.

What is the maximum distance possible between an Omron STI light curtain transmitter and receiver?

100 feet (30 m). This range is available from OptoFence products. Can multiple sides of a machine be safely guarded with one light curtain? Different situations call for different solutions. However, Omron STI offers three alternatives for applications where guarding is required for more than one side of a machine.

Mirrors. The invisible infrared beams of Omron STI light curtain can be “bent” around corners using mirrors. Using mirrors decreases the effective range of a light curtain.

Segmented light curtains.
The MicroSafe MCF and MCJ series allow you to guard two or more areas on a machine. Multiple heads are linked in series and operated from a single controller.

QuadSafe.
This resource module for Omron STI light curtains with solid-state outputs provides one common solidstate safety output and allows up to four light curtains to be connected.

What impact do mirrors have on the maximum distance between light curtain transmitter and receiver?

Mirrors are used to “bend” the infrared beams from the light curtain transmitter around corners and back to the light curtain receiver to define and guard the perimeter of a hazardous machine. All mirrors absorb infrared light to some degree. All Omron STI-supplied glass mirrors are front-surface mirrors. The incoming infrared light does not travel through a layer of glass before being reflected. Range reduction using these products is 12% per mirror. Since certain applications do not allow the presence of glass mirrors which can shatter, Omron STI can supply stainless steel mirrors in these situations. The range reduction on these products is 12% per mirror.

How many segments can a FlexSafe or MicroSafe Flexible Series safety light curtain have?

While it is possible to have more, in practice most systems are shipped with two, three or four segments.

Which light curtain system is used to detect personnel passing through a specified perimeter?

When guarding a perimeter it is essential that the light curtain have a restart interlock or “guard mode” feature in its control circuitry. This means that once the sensing field of the light curtain has been violated, the curtain will continue to send a stop signal to the guarded machine until it is manually reset by an operator using a key switch.

Once an obstruction is removed from the light curtain sensing field, what does the curtain do?

If it is operating in the Automatic Reset mode, the light curtain will reset itself and the stop signal will be removed from the guarded machinery. With Restart Interlock operation enabled, the stop signal will not be removed until manually reset by an authorized person.