Safety Light Curtain for Aseptic Filling and Sealing Machines

Stainless steel housing compatible with common cleaning processes

  • by SICK AG
  • December 20, 2018
  • 2074 views
  • Safety Light Curtain for Aseptic Filling and Sealing Machines
    Safety Light Curtain for Aseptic Filling and Sealing Machines

The SICK TWINOX4 safety light curtain was specially developed to protect aseptic filling and sealing machines used in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. To provide the highest level of product protection, pharmaceutical manufacturing processes employ physical barriers to separate the product and users. Gloves are worn to enable workers to access the process without the risk of contamination. To ensure that interventions only occur when processing has stopped, the safety light curtain protects the access points. The pharmaceutical industry uses extremely aggressive cleaning and decontamination agents, which means that the machines it uses must be highly resistant and rugged. The TWINOX4 meets all of these criteria. Its housing design enables it to be integrated seamlessly into machines or systems. The safety light curtain also boasts a full high-resolution protective field, ensuring maximum safety and high availability of the machine or system. 

Media-resistant and easy to clean

The housing of the safety light curtain, along with all brackets and end caps, is manufactured in stainless steel 1.4404/316L. Aggressive cleaning agents and disinfectants such as hydrogen peroxide require media-resistant materials. The stainless-steel housing of the TWINOX4 meets this criterion, making it compatible with all common decontamination processes. Thanks to its easy-to-clean housing, all residue can be removed from the light curtain quickly and efficiently. With rounded edges and no indentations, the design is ideal for use in areas with stringent hygiene requirements. 

Safe machine operation, fast on-site diagnostics

Multi-colored LEDs indicate the operational readiness and status of the TWINOX4 safety light curtain across the entire protective field height. The status lights illuminate in green when the protective field is intact, indicating to the operator that the protective function is active before he reaches into the hazardous area. If an intervention is initiated while the machine is running, the TWINOX4 detects the interruption and stops the machine. Thanks to the LED status indicators, fast on-site diagnostics can be performed on the electro-sensitive protective device at any time.

High level of integration compatibility

The unit stick concept ensures that the safety light curtain is easy to integrate into the machine. The sender and receiver are housed in two identical twin sticks of exactly the same size. The safety light curtain is assembled by turning two twin housings 180° to face each other, so that the sending and receiving modules are opposite one other. The sticks are fitted in stainless steel brackets with integrated alignment aids to help the user quickly get the sender and receiver modules into the correct position. Depending on the machine and operating situation, the TWINOX4 can be installed in either a horizontal or vertical position. The unit stick concept also brings financial benefits: As only one component needs to be procured, stored, managed, and kept in stock as a spare part, the TWINOX4 helps to make ordering processes more efficient and reduces storage and spare part stocking costs.