Safety Systems for Press Brakes

The characteristic feature of press brakes is to move a tool, usually the upper tool or the bending punch, it moves towards a fixed tool (V-die) which sits on top of bottom bed of the press, consequently bending the metal sheet placed between them. The freely accessible bending area of a press brake represents a serious risk of operators getting seriously injured by accidents, such as the injury or the loss of fingers or hands, which are frequently the consequences of accidents that happen at press brakes.

Therefore all applicable standards and accident preventing regulations stipulate the use of safety measures or accident preventing measures at press brakes.

In order to prevent accidents, Fiessler Elektronik in Esslingen/Germany has developed the patented  press brake protection system. The aim and object of this innovative finger protection device for press brakes is: the prevention of a finger or hand being squeezed between the punch and the inserted sheet metal. This is realized by the optical safety light grid which safeguards the area beneath or in front of the tool. The dangerous movement is stopped as soon as a part of the body reaches into the safety  light grid.

Transmitter and receiver are combined securely to the ram of the machine and form a laser-optical safety light grid which is located in front of the bending punch and which moves simultaneously with the ram.

When a certain clearance between the tip of the tool and the metal sheet is reached, the machine control issues a muting command to the receiver element. At his point, the closing speed is reduced. For an effective protection of the operators even during slow speed, still more receiver elements are active. Only at the point where reaching into the gap between tool tip and metal sheet is made impossible, the protective function of the is no more required. The bending procedure is now completed despite of all beams being interrupted.

With the Laser-optical safety light grid, the hands remain free for handling the sheet metal during the operation under continuous protection of the extremities during the whole bending process.