Posted to News on 14th Mar 2008, 11:26
Gateways link Sick safety products to standard fieldbuses
Sick (UK) is launching new gateways for the integration of equipment in PROFIsafe, Profibus DP, Ethernet TCP/IP and CANopen bus systems.
The company's new UE-EFI gateways feature bi-directional data exchange to enable the use of the enhanced sensor functions in Sick equipment, for example the switching of monitored fields in the case of safety laser scanners. The gateways are connected via the Enhanced Function Interface (EFI) from Sick and are therefore suitable for both standard and safe PLCs.
Equipment configuration, status and diagnostic information are instantly available from a human-machine interface (HMI) and remote maintenance of the safety systems helps to increase plant availability.
A variety of devices can be connected, such as the S300 and S3000 safety laser scanners, the C4000 safety light curtain, the M4000 multiple light beam safety device and UE440/UE470 compact safety controllers.
Connecting a S3000 safety laser scanner or C4000/M4000 safety light curtain enables access to more diagnostic and configuration options than with a standard safety relay. If there is an existing Profibus, Ethernet or CANopen network, the diagnostics can be transmitted to the network via the gateway.
Diagnostic data and setup parameters may be viewed on a standard control network using Sick CDS software, which tracks data faults more quickly and efficiently, resulting in less machine downtime and therefore saving money.
With the development of the PROFIsafe gateway, the S3000 and C/M4000 devices can be directly integrated to the safe network. This saves the cost of a remote node. All gateways come with a GSD file, which makes every unit easy to integrate into a network architecture.
