The timing couldn't have been better. Andreas Flatscher, Electrical Engineer at Micado, was in the process of working out a safety concept for an inline measuring station when a newsletter landed in his inbox announcing the launch of a new safety relay from Pilz. This not only offered exactly the functionality he needed, but also another extremely customer-friendly feature: the modular safety relay myPnoz is supplied pre-configured and ready to install.

The true art of the engineer is to make things simple. This is the guiding principle of the East Tyrolean company Micado, which was founded in 1998 as a design office and now offers automated solutions as a full-service partner in the areas of product development, tool and fixture construction and automation technology. "You come to us when things get tricky. As passionate tinkerers, we love to deliver tailor-made technological answers that challenge the status quo," says Micado CTO Andreas Dorer.

Good partnership for good results

Micado has always been open to new products from its regular suppliers. Like at the beginning of 2021 - the Tyroleans were the first to order a myPnoz safety relay from Pilz's Austrian subsidiary. And that was even before the official product launch, which took place at the beginning of February. The innovative Austrians proactively obtained the most important details about this customizable safety solution in advance. At the time, electrical engineer Andreas Flatscher was in the process of designing the safety technology for the prototype of the aforementioned inline measuring system, which was then to be used in several of the globally active client's plants.

From Micado's point of view, Pilz presented the right product at the right time. The modular safety relay myPnoz is ideal for applications of low or medium complexity for monitoring up to 16 safety functions. At its core, this product, which can be individually configured without programming knowledge, is still a safety relay. On the hardware side, it consists of a head module with integrated power supply and higher-level safety function, to which a maximum of eight extension modules can be plugged. The system logic is determined by the plug-in sequence and the setting of the rotary switches. The configuration of this new safety solution, which can be adapted as required, is carried out using the associated online tool myPnoz Creator. Andreas Flatscher's expert opinion: "Once you know the procedure for wiring with prefabricated function blocks, the operation is practically self-explanatory."

Typical use case for batch size 1

Three safety functions had to be implemented in the inline measuring station: an emergency stop, a safety door, which is necessary for set-up and maintenance work, and a protective flap to prevent access to the upstream machine. © Mushroom

Two safety zones have been created in the inline measuring station, which are monitored by a two-channel emergency stop button as a global safety function. This acts on the outputs of both zones and is AND-linked with the other input functions. "Our application is exactly what Pilz describes as a typical use case for myPnoz: We needed to map three safety functions - an emergency stop, a safety gate required for set-up and maintenance work, and a safety flap to prevent access to the upstream machine. Our system also had to harmonize with the upstream and downstream production process in terms of safety," says Flatscher, describing a safety concept that ultimately required four modules: a head module, an input/output module, an output module for instantaneous switching and one for delayed switching relay contacts.

myPnoz was delivered completely pre-assembled, adjusted and tested at the factory and was therefore "ready-to-install". "With this new generation of safety relays, the programming work goes to Pilz," says CTO Andreas Dorer, delighted with a solution that helps him and his colleagues save time. According to Andreas Flatscher, this is certainly a time saving of one hour per machine. There is also support with wiring, as each myPnoz comes with not only documentation including a switch-off matrix, but also an individual connection diagram. And if a customer wants to order the same system configuration again at a later date, they can do so using the type code received with the first project. This contains all the information for the desired hardware and logic combination. Using a clearly interpretable combination of numbers and letters, Pilz recognizes what the customer wants. This saves the user a lot of effort. "You need to know how many I/Os are required and whether or which delay times need to be taken into account in the switch-off matrix. The rest is done by the myPnoz Creator and us," adds Dorer, highlighting the Eplan macros: "With other manufacturers, only the 'high runners' are equipped with such data. At Pilz, they are available across the board for every product."

As far as myPnoz is concerned, the Oberlienzer are already thinking about configuring a unit that fits 80 percent of their applications. Dorer suggests that the new safety relay has bestseller potential: "Once a standard has been created that covers a good range of projects, it can be used again and again without any engineering or programming effort. That has charm."

Dieter Hufnagel, Pilz Austria