Not entirely PLC related, but here goes:
Question for you folks who are familiar with the RIA R15.06 standard: I don’t have access to the standard at the moment, but am safeguarding a robot cell used for R&D purposes and had a couple of general questions about guarding considerations.
1) Currently there are no guards installed, and the robot reach with tool is close enough to a wall to pin someone against it. I am installing a laser scanner (w/ Safety Relay) in the wall area, which would trip a protective stop covering the entire robot reach including safety distance, but is this enough? Or is there still a minimum clearance required from any hard guard, even when safety devices prevent the robot from moving?
2) I have seen a statement in the standard to the effect that a robot protective stop needs to be initiated when running an automatic sequence and a person enters the vicinity. But what does the standard say about teach and manual operation from the pendant? I seem to remember something like there were certain speed limits where motion was ok, but I can’t recall if this was true (talking standard robots, not cobots).
3) Very generic/general question, probably not so easy to answer: how far does the standard require you go for the safeguarding of equipment (this is a US installation, so OSHA)? For example, I can install dual laser scanners at about thigh height to cover the entire perimeter around the robot. However, it could be possible for someone to enter the robot perimeter, climb up on the conveyor out of sight of the scanners, which if the robot is set to auto-rearm, could turn out to be very dangerous. How far is “reasonable” when considering these types of dangers in a risk assessment?
Thanks for any input.
Question for you folks who are familiar with the RIA R15.06 standard: I don’t have access to the standard at the moment, but am safeguarding a robot cell used for R&D purposes and had a couple of general questions about guarding considerations.
1) Currently there are no guards installed, and the robot reach with tool is close enough to a wall to pin someone against it. I am installing a laser scanner (w/ Safety Relay) in the wall area, which would trip a protective stop covering the entire robot reach including safety distance, but is this enough? Or is there still a minimum clearance required from any hard guard, even when safety devices prevent the robot from moving?
2) I have seen a statement in the standard to the effect that a robot protective stop needs to be initiated when running an automatic sequence and a person enters the vicinity. But what does the standard say about teach and manual operation from the pendant? I seem to remember something like there were certain speed limits where motion was ok, but I can’t recall if this was true (talking standard robots, not cobots).
3) Very generic/general question, probably not so easy to answer: how far does the standard require you go for the safeguarding of equipment (this is a US installation, so OSHA)? For example, I can install dual laser scanners at about thigh height to cover the entire perimeter around the robot. However, it could be possible for someone to enter the robot perimeter, climb up on the conveyor out of sight of the scanners, which if the robot is set to auto-rearm, could turn out to be very dangerous. How far is “reasonable” when considering these types of dangers in a risk assessment?
Thanks for any input.