Banner Engineering has announced the latest in an extensive line of visible machine indicators, the K100 Basic Beacon, which alerts technicians and engineers about tool problems across a machine cell or tool bay. Their new beacons will likely see use in both industrial and commercial settings.
What is a Tool Beacon?
Tool beacons sit atop a high spot of a piece of processing equipment and emit a light to indicate the status of the machine. They can alert operators and technicians to potential problems, error codes, emergency conditions, or that all is well with a piece of equipment.
Several colors are available for the new Banner K100 Basic Beacon.
In a large machining cell or tool bay, it becomes much easier to identify problems when one machine has a large flashing red light, starkly standing out from the other mass of large, steady green lights.
Besides their industrial uses, tool beacons get used in commercial applications as well. In the line at the grocery store, customers line up and watch for one of the self-checkout registers to illuminate green, meaning it’s ready for the next customer. They flash red to let an employee know there is a problem, or perhaps light up yellow to provide assistance for scanning items, or verify the customer’s age for restricted purchases. They may also have an “in-use” state or a “no cash transaction” state, where only electronic payment is allowed. Flexibility is key to visual beacons.
The K100 Basic Beacon
Banner Engineering’s new K100 Basic Beacon features an LED interface, available in any of five colors: red, blue, green, yellow, and white. Banner says that the beacons can be used in or outdoors, as the LEDs are bright enough even for direct sunlight. They are also Ingress Protection 67 (IP67) rated, meaning they are water and dust proof.
A brightly illuminated green K100 Basic Beacon. Image used courtesy of Banner Engineering
When compared to typical tool beacon stacks, the K100 is more compact and has the potential to put out more light, based on the LED design and the fact that the lights are not covered on top. In tool beacon stacks (or towers), lights are piled one on top of another, and the bottom lights are not visible as far away.
One important consideration is that stack lights do have a small advantage in that the position of the light is important. A technician who experiences color blindness may not be able to see the difference between a blue and a green light, but when placed in a stack, they can remember the position of each. However, the design team at Banner has included several lighting routines, such as constant lighting, strobe, intensity sweep (fading from bright to dim or vice versa), and an even flashing mode that can be used to mean different messages as well. Given all of these modes, it is possible for a well-programmed K100 to represent up to 20 different codes, one for each combination of color and lighting routine.
Colors for Machine Status Indication
The compact yet bright design, and the ability to employ this light for many color and illumination routines make this a welcome improvement over the older incandescent bulb tool stacks that have been used for generations. The heat from the light often discolored the plastic lens, the bulbs burned out and they were simply not as bright.
LED technology, along with reliable and fast signal and communication protocols, have raised the bar of visual machine status indication for more efficient use of shop space and time.
