Conveyor facility having a safety function

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10035660-B2
Application number	US-201515509523-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 6, 2015
Priority date	Sep 10, 2014
Publication date	Jul 31, 2018
Grant date	Jul 31, 2018

Abstract

A conveyor facility having at least one traveling unit, which has an electrical load, in particular an electric drive, and which can be moved along a conveyor path by means of the drive; and a railbus, which is arranged along the conveyor path and which has at least one supply collector wire via which the traveling unit is supplied with power. In order to reduce the space required by the railbus, a safety device is provided which has only one safety collector wire and yet ensures an emergency stop in a fault-tolerant manner.

First claim

We claim:

1. A conveyor installation comprising:
a) at least one transporting unit that is displaceable along a conveying path and that comprises an entrained electrical load, and having
b) a busbar that is arranged along the conveying path and that comprises at least one power supply contact conductor by means of which the at least one transporting unit is supplied with power,
wherein
c) a safety device is provided that
comprises a safety contact conductor that is live during normal operation,
comprises a first safety circuit which, if necessary, de-energizes the safety contact contactor,
comprises a monitoring means, which monitors whether the safety contact conductor is de-energized, and that
comprises a second safety circuit, which de-energizes the at least one power supply contact conductor if the monitoring means detects that the safety contact conductor is not de-energized even though the first safety circuit should have de-energized the safety contact conductor,

d) and in that the at least one transporting unit ( 12 ) entrains
a monitoring circuit that detects when there is no further voltage on the safety contact conductor, and
a stop device, which then switches off the electrical load of the at least one transporting unit and/or blocks movements by the at least one transporting unit.

2. The conveyor installation as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the electrical load is an electric drive that can be used to displace the at least one transporting unit along the conveying path and/or that is used to realize other movements.

3. The conveyor installation as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the monitoring means comprises at least one monitoring circuit arranged statically outside the at least one transporting unit.

4. The conveyor installation as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the monitoring means comprises a reporting circuit that is entrained by the transporting unit and that reports at least indirectly when there is no further voltage on the safety contact conductor, as a result of which, when the first safety circuit should have de-energized the safety contact conductor, the absence of a report leads to detection that the safety contact conductor is not de-energized.

5. The conveyor installation as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the first safety circuit comprises two controllable switches that are connected in series on an output side and that, during normal operation, connect the safety contact conductor to the at least one power supply contact conductor.

6. The conveyor installation as claimed in claimed 1 , wherein the second safety circuit comprises two controllable switches that are connected in series on the output side and that, during normal operation, connect the at least one power supply contact conductor to a power supply.

7. The conveyor installation as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the stop device of the at least one transporting unit comprises two controllable switches that are connected in series on an output side and that, during normal operation, close a disable input of the at least one transporting unit.

8. The conveyor installation as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the electrical load operates with a three phase current and the busbar comprises three power supply contact conductors, which carry three phrases of the three-phase current, and in that the safety contact conductor, during normal operation, is live with respect to at least one of the supply contact conductors.

9. The conveyor installation as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the safety device comprises a trip switch by means of which the need for the safety function is activated.

10. The conveyor installation as claimed in claim 1 , wherein parts of the safety device are realized in a failsafe programmable logic controller.

11. The conveyor installation as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the safety contact conductor is divided along the conveying path into sections that are smaller than sections of the at least one power supply contact conductor.

Assignees

• Eisenmann Se

Inventors

• Zoeller Joachim
• Niebel Bernd

Classifications

• B65G2207/40

  Safety features of loads, equipment or persons · CPC title

• B65G43/00 Primary

  Control devices, e.g. for safety, warning or fault-correcting · CPC title

• H02H3/00

  Emergency protective circuit arrangements for automatic disconnection directly responsive to an undesired change from normal electric working condition with or without subsequent reconnection (specially adapted for specific types of electric machines or apparatus or for sectionalised protection of cable or line systems H02H7/00; systems for change-over to standby supply H02J9/00 ){; integrated protection (for motors H02H7/0822)} · CPC title

• G05B9/02

  electric · CPC title

• B61B3/02 Primary

  with self-propelled vehicles · CPC title