Automation now dominates most aspects of commercial and industrial life. Robots have become the people manning production lines and programmable logic controllers have become the supervisors masterminding the robots.
Where once a human used eyes and a clipboard to monitor the movement of products along a conveyor belt, beams of light from photoelectric sensors now perform the same function without the need for food, smoko breaks, or sleep.
Where once doors were opened for ladies by gentlemen, photoelectric sensors now do the deed long before chivalry can get close.
Such is the world we live in and businesses simply have to embrace this new technology to stay competitive. And while photoelectric sensors might be at the cheaper end of the technological revolution, they are, quite literally, a ray of light for all kinds of commercial and industrial operations.
Photoelectric sensors use light to detect objects or determine if they’re where they’re expected to be or are missing. Photoelectric sensors are used on production lines, automatic doors and also have a wide range of applications in the transport industry.
Photoelectric sensors use light to detect objects or determine if an object is missing. One of the main uses for photoelectric sensors is on production lines. They can count products or components as they pass on a conveyor belt. They can also tell if an object is the wrong shape and shouldn’t be there or if an object is the wrong way around.
Elsewhere photoelectric sensors are used to detect people at automatic doors and stop the doors from closing as they walk through.
In fact, you’ll find photoelectric sensors pretty much anywhere automatic and repeated object detection makes processes easier – the automotive industry, food manufacturing, bottling plants, and material handling; they even have wide-ranging applications in transportation.
Each photoelectric sensor has an emitter which sends out a beam of light. A receiver positioned directly opposite on, for example, a conveyor belt receives this light beam. This type of photoelectric sensor is called a through-beam sensor as there are two parts forming a beam of light. When an object moves through the beam, it breaks the connection between the emitter and receiver and the sensor output will turn off. This registers on a PLC as a count or whatever the system has been set up to record.
They do, there are four options:
The cheapest photoelectric sensors only cost about $50, but good mid-range units are around $240 while high range through-beam sensors are $570 or thereabouts.
There are really only a couple of things that go wrong with a photoelectric sensor. One, it starts sensing things that aren’t there. Two, it doesn’t sense things that are there.
If either of those happens:
Most popular Photoelectric Sensor suppliers and brands on IndustrySearch are Treotham Automation, Datalogic Australia Pty Ltd, Autech Control Group, Connected IoT.