Why the Deadman Switch is Important

When you are pro­gram­ming a robot, work­ing with a robot, or train­ing some­one on a robot, you always oper­ate it in teach mode. Dur­ing this time, you are using the teach pen­dant to com­mu­ni­cate with the robot, and that is where the dead­man switch is located.

The dead­man switch is an ON/OFF switch on the back of the teach pen­dant. The pur­pose of the dead­man switch is to guard the per­son oper­at­ing the robot dur­ing the train­ing process, or any oth­er time the robot is in teach mode. The ser­vo pow­er to the robot only remains on while the teach pen­dant is being held and the dead­man switch is pressed in. If the dead­man switch releas­es any time while the robot is in teach mode, the pow­er to the robot is shut off automatically.

An impor­tant safe­ty fea­ture, the dead­man switch is imper­a­tive to pro­tect the train­er, stu­dent or pro­gram­mer dur­ing man­u­al manip­u­la­tion or block oper­a­tion of the robot sys­tem. Since the teach pen­dant is not used dur­ing pro­duc­tion, and all human work­ers are away from the robot’s zone of oper­a­tion dur­ing that time, the dead­man switch is not need­ed at that time.

Are you inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the dead­man switch or any oth­er safe­ty fea­tures for robot­ic sys­tems? If so, you should con­tact Robots​.com. We pro­vide solu­tions from sev­er­al dif­fer­ent robot­ics com­pa­nies, includ­ing KUK, ABB, Motoman, and Fanuc. Our staff will work with you to help you find the best robot­ic sys­tem for your facil­i­ty, along with the best safe­ty package.

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Robots​.com today online or at 877−762−6881.