Hydraulic press with safety features - light curtains, physical guarding, optical scanners

Beckwood attentively considers the safety of operators, maintenance workers and general personnel when designing and building our machines. We understand press safety is imperative to the success of your business and your people.  That’s why every press manufactured by Beckwood conforms to the United States’ OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Association) requirements.

In fact, we have extensive experience adhering to a variety of safety regulations, including the ANSI B11.2 Hydraulic Press Safety Standard, CSA Z142, CE, UL, and others.

Standard safety features on every Beckwood press include: Parker ‘Style 55’ safety couplers for cylinder-to-ram attachment, redundant solenoids to control hazardous motion of the ram, 2-hand touch controls for press actuation and terminals for the connection of customer-defined safety devices and guarding. For an added level of security, Beckwood offers advanced safety features and options including:

Integrated Weekly Safety Checks – Presses featuring Beckwood’s Pre-Preventative Maintenance (PPM) technology require operators to perform weekly safety checks to confirm that all on-board safety devices are working as intended. Through this quick and easy verification process, emergency-stop buttons, light curtains, interlock devices and other integrated safety components are tested. Maintenance and management are then emailed safety results directly from the machine.

Ram Safety Catcher System – The RSCS is designed for secondary holding of the ram in any position throughout the stroke and the static load of the ram and tooling. The RSCS is monitored via a safety PLC to ensure proper functionality and is engineered to restrict movement of the ram – even in the event of a power failure.

Light Curtains – A strip light transmitter and receiver can guard the openings of the press and keep the point-of-operation free for loading and unloading while ensuring continued operator safety. The transmitter sends a beam of light to the receiver, and when the curtain of light is broken, the press will not actuate and any downward movement of the press stops.

Physical Guarding – Beckwood’s standard safety guards are composed of a metal-mesh material to maintain a degree of visibility within the working area. Other options include a of Plexiglas (polycarbonate) guards, which provide a solid physical barrier without sacrificing visibility. These interlocked barriers can be offered as fixed guards, doors with hinges, or vertically sliding gates that open via a powered mechanism or counterbalance system.

Area Scanners – Like optical radar, these compact systems scan their surroundings and measure distances by using the time-of-flight principle of measurement. Area scanners can be equipped with either a single warning zone, or multiple stage warning zones.  With a single warning zone scanner, any breach of the programmed zone results in a machine shut down.  With multiple stage warning zones, individual fields/zones are programmed into the scanner, with varying levels of sensitivity and warnings (blinking lights, audible alarms, machine shut down, etc).

Request a Safety Audit for your existing press