Signal towers - commonly found on Pick and Place machines and similar industrial equipment - provide operators with a quick overview of working conditions. WERMA's KombiSign 71 family is a highly flexible signal tower that offers industrial designers a wide array of comfort features.

WERMA's signaling family is unique for its range of options. The lighting elements can be purchased in 14V DC, 24V AC/DC, 115V,115V AC, and 230V AC variants. For example, a blue 12V light, as shown in the figure below, can be ordered under SKU 644.500.54. If other colors are desired, the product is also available in red, green, yellow, and white.

Its LED lamps are rated for a minimum of 50,000 hours of continuous operation. Furthermore, the housing is certified to withstand harsh surroundings as per IP65 and/or Protection class 2.

The bayonet connector at the bottom can be used to connect the light to either an additional light or a variety of base stations. This way, a tower of up to five lamps can be created, allowing a variety of machine statuses to be visually exposed.

An example base would be the 640.830.00, which exposes a cable access port as shown below.

Finally, the system can be mounted on a variety of bases, such as the 975.840.10. An example traffic light status indicator would then present itself as shown in the second figure.

Designers can use the configurator web application found at https://www.werma.com/en/service/configurators/kombisign-configurators/ to experiment with various options -- the system ensures that the resulting signal tower will work perfectly at all times.

IO-Link Signaling for PLC Control

Industrial machinery controlled by a PLC can benefit from an IO-Link-enabled signaling tower. This way, the PLC's native interface bus controls the PLC, freeing up IO pins for other control tasks.

WERMA supports this via the 646.840.55. It is an IO-Link base station which is mounted between the individual luminaires and the socket intended for mounting the tower to the machine.

After that, an industry-standard M12 connector can be used to connect the signaling tower to the PLC. It can then control the various luminaires; the LEDs in the base station provide additional information on the IO-Link transmitter\'s communication status. Finally, a set of IODD files simplifies PLCC set-up on compliant control systems.

Conclusion

Industrial signaling becomes easy with the deployment of a KombiSign 71 signal tower. Thanks to the robustness of the lighting elements and the various options available, the signal tower's presence enhances industrial design. Finally, the vast array of supported voltages and the IO-Link base ensure application versatility in all circumstances.