First Look: Samos Pro Safety Controller (S2E15)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Everybody, welcome back to the show. Sean Tierney
here from Insights and Automation, and we have
a special show for you today. I have
Michael here from Wheelan, and we're gonna talk
safety PLCs and all kinds of great stuff.
But before we jump into that, you know,
I haven't had Wheeling on the show before.
So, Michael, I'm hoping you can give us
a well, not only introduce yourself. I got

(00:20):
to meet him this morning before we started
recording. But, if you could introduce yourself and
then maybe tell us a little bit about
your company, and then we can jump into
why we're here to talk about these good
looking products. So let me turn it over
to you. Okay. Great. Well, thank you, Sean.
Thank you for having me. I appreciate that.
And, yeah, my name is Mike Warren. I'm
a business development manager for, Whelan Electric,
North America.

(00:41):
I've been, with Whelan a couple years now,
but, I got over twenty years of experience
in the industry.
I have a couple of TUV certifications under
my belt. I have a TUV functional safety
engineer and also TUV certified functional safety expert.
In addition to that, I do consulting for
safety applications.
I teach safety classes. I also teach the

(01:03):
CFSE
class.
And, I do things like,
review machine safeguarding,
standards, CE marking,
risk assessments,
remediations,
lockout tagout, basically everything that, is involved in
in the safety world. These are some of
the classes that I cover.
So, what we're doing today, Sean, is to

(01:24):
talk about, our product. Okay? The the Samuels
Pro Compact.
And the Samuels Pro Compact is a safety
PLC.
It's known, by various names, safety controller, brick
PLC,
whatnot.
But it is a compact,
as the name implies,
safety controller.
And in a safety chain,
it really is, the keystone to a safety,

(01:46):
system.
There's always, an input device. Okay. We follow
the ILO system. Okay. I for input devices.
L for logic, in this case, the Samuels
Pro Compact. And an output devices
could be contactors,
which I have here, in the demo itself.
Okay.
It could be a,
OSSD,
inputs from a VFD or robots. Okay? So

(02:08):
those qualify as output devices. But the input
device is for detection. The large device makes
a decision, and the output device executes.
And the primary purpose of an output device
is to remove energy in an emergency or
a, an intrusion, situation.
So let's take a look at the product
itself. Okay? The Samuels Pro Compact, again, is

(02:29):
occupying this spot right here, in the demo
itself. It's 45 millimeters.
Okay? Very compact.
The base system is set up with 20
inputs. Okay? 20
devices.
Okay. 20 inputs, it would be,
10 safety devices. Safety device is always redundant.
There's two points per safety device. So that

(02:49):
device is already set up for 10.
There's four safety outputs on it.
And the version that I have here in
the demo is actually an upgraded version including
motion.
So not only will it, set up and
accept the inputs from some of these safety
devices that I have here, for example, like
light curtains, I have door switches,

(03:10):
I have an e stop, I also have
an analog position switch right there that'll detect
the input. Other than those devices, I also
have a safety encoder
attached to one of the axes,
in the demo to do motion detection. Not
only are we detecting people, but we're also
detecting shaft movements, okay, with the encoder itself.

(03:30):
And that's optional. So there's two models, one
with motion and one without. That's absolutely right.
Alright. And I wanna point out that the
software is free. It can be downloaded easily.
It can throw it on your laptop. And
the nice thing about it, and we'll get
to the software. We're gonna show a little
bit about it, that you can use the
software without any hardware attached to it yet.
Okay? You could literally can build your safety

(03:51):
system in the virtual sense, test it out,
check to see if it's, working properly.
And, again, when we dive into the software,
you'll see a little bit, the nice, additional
features you get. Things like a schematic and
a report, and also show you the modules
that are actually part of the system itself.
Okay?
Now, we talked about,
the communications
on this too. Okay?

(04:13):
We have three onboard communication,
protocols. Okay?
Onboard, we can, work with PROFINET, Ethernet IP,
and Modbus TCP. Oh, nice. There are additional
gateways that you can get to add additional,
cons. Okay?
That includes
CAN open, PROFIBUS, and EtherCAT.

(04:34):
So, again, we have a nice way of
communicating
with other protocols, and let's face it, other
manufacturers.
And in the safety world,
the manufacturer's
controllers, the actual, automation controllers are not to
dictate to the safety system when to remove
energy or not. It's the other way around.
The safety always has a a precedence and

(04:55):
a priority over the controls.
Its purpose with these communication gateways is to
inform the control systems of what's going on
in the safety. Yeah. I mean, most of
the time, your your master PLC is gonna
already have an HMI or SCADA system. Correct.
So they're gonna wanna display that information. So
if you have those especially the the three
you have built in, I'll be able to
probably the biggest three Yep. You know, according

(05:16):
to all the surveys and industry reports and
whatnot. Having those built in means I mean,
you cover most PLCs standard PLCs. You're gonna
be able to give the data to them.
They're gonna be able to know in their
program. They're They're gonna be able to let
their operators know using the existing equipment. So
very cool. Yep. And in this world, we,
fully understand that, it's a it's a mix
and match. Okay? Okay. Rare do we find

(05:38):
customers that are using a single brand for
everything.
You and it's necessary that, you know, one
brand of light curtains works with the controller
and another brand of door switch and whatnot.
They're all kinda compatible. And the communications, though,
is very, very important,
because, again, they're not, operating,
independently
and in a silo. So if I understand

(06:00):
that correctly, so we're seeing your products, Ian.
I really don't know much about your company
and what products they make, but I can
see you make a lot of products here.
So you're saying that you don't just work
with the Whelan products, you work with other
people's safety products as well. Absolutely. Third party
light curtain or third party contactor or safety
contactor or third parties, safety push button. Absolutely.
Okay. Whelan,
itself is a, it's a German company. Okay?

(06:23):
Okay? They're famous for their terminal blocks. Okay?
So really we put them on the map,
you know, many, many years ago.
But,
there's two pillars for the company right now.
One is safety products, and the other is
distributed power. And, again, this is an important
product for it. This is really our keystone
and our leading product,
as a logic device in a safety system.

(06:44):
So a lot of time and energy and
development has been put into this, to make
it, a world class and, leading with all
the features, like you said, including communications.
Well, I think too the fact that the
audience can go out there and grab a
copy of the software and actually simulate their
system,
that gives them a you know, because maybe
they maybe they're like me. Maybe they haven't
used your system before. So they can actually

(07:06):
build a system, put it together, test it
in the simulator
without spending a dime. They'll be like and,
hey. They go to the boss and say,
hey. I got a proof of concept here.
Let's let's call Mike and say, we can't
come to call out and and show us
more. Yep. No. No. As a please call.
By the way, I appreciate that.
No. Like I say, it is a, a
wonderful benefit.

(07:27):
It helps people try to determine because, let's
face it. Not everybody knows and understands safety
unless you do this, day in and day
out. Yeah. You're not up with the latest
standards. You don't understand
simple things like an e stop here requires
a, a contrasting yellow background to it. Something
as simple as that.
And, again, the, the the software itself is

(07:48):
smart enough where you put these devices together,
and if you configure it wrong, it bounces
you out. And the reason that it bounces
you out or says that you can't, you're
not permitted to do that particular because it's
always traceable back to standards. Okay? So the
standards are embedded in the configuration,
and the algorithms that allow you to drag
and drop and put particular devices together are

(08:10):
based on,
on the standards themselves.
Okay. So the controller itself, in a safety
system, is of the highest rating. Okay? In
the PL system, it's PLE.
Okay? That's, that's that is the highest, that
you can,
arrive to in in the PL system.
It's PLE,
SIL three, or CAT four. Okay?

(08:33):
They're all being used in in today's industry.
People, communicate, about safety either in cats or
seals or PLs.
But the latest and greatest, in, going forward
really is the, the the performance level, PLE.
That's the highest level. But, again, it follows
basic, safety fundamentals that if you attach,

(08:54):
devices,
in a chain, a safety chain, and you
have PLE, PLE, PLE, and you have one
device, that's PLD or PLC, for example, a
little lower than the whole system
always reverts down to the lowest in the
chain. It's the weakest link basically. The weakest
link. Yeah. Okay.
So,
again, you're starting out with a a PLE
safety controller, and now the weakest link is

(09:16):
not the controller. It tends to be something
else. Good. Okay?
I mentioned also that, the motion control. Okay?
And it has a a safe motion,
embedded in the software, and we're gonna take
a peek at these a little bit. Six
different TUV function blocks. Okay? Certified function blocks.
Okay?
They are,
a safe standstill motion. Okay? Or or basically

(09:39):
a zero RPM,
determination.
Okay? And all of these function blocks in
the motion world are designed to detect shaft
motion,
shaft speed, shaft position, okay, and shaft direction.
All the rest of the safety devices we
have on here are for human detection. Okay?
Hands, like light curtains, hands going in,

(10:00):
door switches, gates opening, things like that.
To your point, Sean, that, yeah, you say,
you know, we have compatibility with lots of
other brands and lots of other products. We
don't have all the safety products that are
available here in front of us.
For example, safety mats. Okay? Okay. Safety mats
can be fed into this. Okay? It's just
another input device. Mhmm. Okay?

(10:23):
Safety scanners can be fed into this. Okay?
The form factor of a safety scanner is
a little different than light curtains. Okay? But
it's basic same principle. Okay?
Rope pulley stops.
Okay? Two hand controls.
All of these different devices are available in
the library.
Okay? And, again, we're gonna show the software
here in a little bit, and you can

(10:45):
configure it, as you please with whatever brand,
you'd like to use. And, again,
some people are are stuck on certain technologies.
For example,
safety mats are kinda older technology. Mhmm. But
they're still viable and a viable solution in
a lot of applications, and we see them
all the time. So, obviously, the safety controller,
will take those, as a,

(11:07):
a viable input. Yeah. A lot of times
I've seen that the choice there is really
I mean, I think most people wanna do
the light curtains,
but I think the mats, the rope pulls,
the the scanners, I mean, they all address
applications where
the light curtain just doesn't isn't the best
fit. So it really comes back, and you
tell me if I'm wrong, but it seems
the the choice there, a lot of times,
comes back to,

(11:28):
not always. I mean, there's preferences. They want
they all work. Right? Yep. But the scanners
usually being the most expensive in my experience.
But, yeah, a lot of it there's there's
some applications you just have to have the
rope pull. You something else won't work. Yep.
No. You're absolutely right. The application typically drives
the choice of devices. And,
one of the things that, I go through

(11:48):
when I do safety,
machine safeguarding classes is this should always be
be based on risk assessments. Yeah. Really looking
at it, holistically, the whole system,
the usage,
the severity of the potential injuries, the frequency,
the chances of these injuries type of happen.
And, again, we put the best recommendations
going forward,

(12:09):
based on when we see applications. But it
is by application by application.
Rarely do we see, two that are exactly
the same. Yeah. And the risk assessment, I
mean,
if you're an expert, you have the training
he has, you you maybe you can do
your own. But a a lot of us
don't have that training.
And so to pick the right products, you
gotta know what the risks are. And you

(12:31):
don't wanna spend
thousands and thousands of dollars on something and
then find out, oh, like, the biggest risk
you didn't address because it just didn't come
to mind. So the risk assessment by an
expert
is so huge in these type of applications.
Again, some of the people, maybe they went
to your training, maybe they got certified, and
they can do their own. But, that's usually
a big part of a part of a
project. It is. It is. And, it's important,

(12:53):
again, to have at least, you know, some
background. Okay?
It isn't really an arbitrary,
choice of devices. It's usually a thoughtful process
thinking of the input devices and the risks
to people and, considering the the, the collaboration
of people and machinery together. This is where
we have to try to protect, humans near

(13:14):
the equipment. Yeah. Absolutely. And it's gone on
the days from a 100 years ago
where, you can take those risks. I know
a lot of people still do, but,
you know, every time somebody gets hurt and
there's a new light current going up or
a new god going on something,
the go on are the days where a
sign says, don't touch or you may die.
That's not sufficient these days. And a lot

(13:35):
of that's driven by the insurance companies because
they don't wanna have to pay out for
people getting all these injuries. Right? And I
think we all know people who are missing
hands and thumbs and and and body parts
because they got they got stuck in a
machine. So, I think this is a good
trend. And these products, I I I think
when you guys see the software, they're super
easy to use as well, so it makes
a lot of sense. Yep. And let's not

(13:57):
forget, you mentioned insurance companies, but let's not
forget government oversight. Okay? OTA Yeah. True. Is,
here in The United States is, really the
watchdog for safety. And, not only are there,
costs involved with machine downtime and injuries and
insurance payouts, but let's not forget,
fines,
levied by, OSHA.
Okay? And, once you, unfortunately, once you get

(14:19):
into,
OSHA's radar,
they keep they can't they tend to keep
an eye on you. And, you don't again,
it's it's this kind of scrutiny you really
don't want.
Poor publicity,
downtime,
and, again, that's reputation. I mean, at some
point, it boils down to company reputation.
Okay? But, speaking of software, why don't we
take a peek at the software here, and

(14:41):
let me show you a couple of details
about it. Okay?
This is the basic work screen right here.
I have the software,
called up. Again, it was a free download.
I downloaded it online.
And, again, I wanna create a basic system.
Okay? I'm not gonna replicate this whole system
here. There's a lot of devices here and
there could be conditions where I have multiple

(15:03):
safety zones, which is something that you could
put in the software. But I'm just gonna
do a very basic
configuration. I I call it the five minutes
to safety
setup. And what's the simplest safety device to
wire up and set up here? It's the
lonely estop. Okay? What we're going to do
is we're gonna take an estop, put it
into our, our our workspace here, and wire

(15:24):
it up, run it, make sure it operates
properly. I have the proper, wiring, I have
proper configuration,
and then we'll see how the software guides
us to, that completion. Okay?
So, Sean, we're gonna grab a device here.
Okay? I'm gonna go ahead and grab an
e stop. And you'll notice here, I have
a choice either a single channel or a
dual channel. We always wanna pick dual channel.

(15:47):
Safety is always redundant to contacts per. Okay?
So I grab that. Okay? Now as part
of a safety system, once I, initiate an
emergency stop, I have to be able to
reset it. Okay? That's an important part of
the actuation of the, of the estop. So
what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grab
a reset button. Okay? Right out of the

(16:07):
library. Now pop it right over here.
Now the next thing I wanna do is
I have to have the actual contact, the
initial initiation of a switch itself. Okay? So
I'm going to come over here to the
switch, and I'm going to grab a dual
channel switch. Just drag it over here.
Okay? So I have my emergency stop. I
have my reset, and then I have the

(16:28):
actual switch, the initiation switch of the system.
And what's missing? My output device. Right? So
I'm gonna come over here, and I'm gonna
just grab some contactors. Okay? Quite similar to
what I have in the demo itself. And
again, dual channel. I'm gonna grab that guy
right there. Okay?
So input device,
logic device is the Samuels,
controller here, and also the software called Samuels

(16:51):
plan is right in front of us. Now
we connect. I'm connecting here to there.
I connect here to here, and then I
connect the output
to the contactors.
Okay? Boom. I'm all set up. That's it.
Now why don't we run and initiate,
a safety function here? Let's test it out.
That's how you're gonna really know now. Right?

(17:11):
I turn the simulation on.
The background goes green. So I'm in a
simulated mode. I'm in a virtual system right
now. And as you can see, I have
no hardware set up. I'm just using the
software and the tools in the software itself.
Okay? I'm gonna start the safety. Okay? Start
the simulation. You can see the counter go
up. This is the the time, okay, that

(17:32):
I'm run actually running the, the simulation,
and I have to turn things on. Right?
I have to initiate them. Okay? I turn
that on. You'll notice here I have this
flashing display, display reset request.
I turn that one on,
and then I actually do a reset. It's
as though I just set up an estop,
and I say, okay. Let's initiate it. Let's
get it started. Okay? Now I want you

(17:52):
to notice the lines. Right? From my estop
to the reset to the contactors are all
green. That means I'm up and live, and
I have a living, breathing safety system right
now. So how do I know if it's
working properly? Well, let's just trip the estop.
It would be as simple as hitting the
mushroom here and depressing it down. Since we're
virtual here, I'm gonna hit the estop right

(18:14):
here. My green lines disappear. Okay? I've effectively
executed a safety function. I,
pushed the estop here, and I lost my
connection to my contactor. I now have removed
energy from that contactor. Okay? But and now
if I wanna go through a a reset,
sequence,
go back on, you'll see the flashing light.
I turn that on, turn that on, and

(18:34):
now I have my system back up again.
Okay?
Very easy. And, again, I I tell people
that, this isn't really a a programming system.
This is really a configuration,
and you're just dragging and dropping.
Now let's take a look at some of
the other tools that we have here. I'm
just gonna pause the simulation for a second
here.
Okay. Once I actually do this and I

(18:55):
know I have a living, breathing,
simulation system. Okay? I shut off the simulation
for a second and let's see what the
software has shown us or what done for
us. Okay? Number one, the module. It actually
shows us the module that it's selected to
accomplish the function that we wanted to do.
Okay? This particular model, okay, the non motion
one, you you mentioned that before. This is

(19:16):
a non motion because all we're doing is
an e stop detection here. And if you
take a look, you'll see some very interesting
points. Okay? Notice you're gonna see an e
stop symbol right here on I one and
I two. It automatically
selected,
I one and I two to do that
connection.
The switch, the reset switch itself, I three
and I four, and on the output side,

(19:38):
I have q 1 and q two. They're
my contactors. It actually shows up right on
here. Okay?
And, as you can see on the demo
itself, we have flash we have lights that
are on. We have a communication light on
the Ethernet IP port that's flashing.
These would be, your indicators on here telling
you the condition whether you have good communications,
you have good connections, or in in the

(20:00):
event that you have a safety trip. Okay?
Some of these indicators will go red. And
that's how your your first visual when you
approach a, controller like this and you see
that you have a safety trip, you would
have the red indication on here. Okay? So
that's the module that that came up automatically
in the software. Next is the report. Okay?
It's gonna generate a report
on our configuration.

(20:21):
Okay? And it's nice because there's a lot
in the report itself.
If we scroll down, we end up with
a CRC control number. This is actually a
time date stamp that identifies the unique configuration
of the,
project that we just created here based on
the time date, and it's unique. Okay? And
when you go ahead and build a big

(20:42):
system and you get a machine commissioned, okay,
the CRC number is important to identify
the material condition and the safety, the report
that is generated, the safety level, and it'll
be identified here in the report itself. Okay?
Okay. List of materials. Okay. We have, not
only a bill of materials.
Okay. Scroll down. There's our controller again. That

(21:03):
is in the report. Again, it's a replication
of what we saw in the
software. There's a bill of materials, the actual
devices that are part of the safety system
here. Okay.
And we scroll down a little bit more.
If we ran some diagnostics and more elaborate
systems, we can run diagnostics and collect that
information and actually have it show up here
in the report. Okay?
General information, things like CPU cycle time, for

(21:25):
example, CPU usage. Okay? Isn't identified here.
Now we go down a little bit further
and this is a really really cool part
of the system that I like is actually
the wiring diagram. We get calls all the
time. Hey, how do you wire this? They
say, you know, what do I connect? And
I said, well, you know, it's a input
device, log device, output device. Yeah. But how
do you connect it? When you set it

(21:47):
up in the software here and you do
the drag and drop like you see and
run the report, you get an automatic wiring
diagram. That's all. So you don't have to,
you know, break out a pen and paper
and draw up your wiring diagram. It's already
in here. And you can export this and
put it into your master, wiring diagram. Okay?
So those are on the inputs. Right? Okay?
It's my test policies. Okay? It shows my

(22:09):
mercy stop and then also my reset switch.
And on the output,
I show my contactors.
Okay? So, again, as you go through the
whole report, it shows all the details or
anything we configured. Again, we did something very
simple. Just wired up an e stop to,
actuate, a safety function, and we had the
contactors to actually do something. The logic device

(22:29):
makes a decision, and the contactors actually remove
the energy.
Okay? Now if we had additional things like,
IO. Okay? This does have the ability to,
have expanded IO. Again, we mentioned there were
20 IO points, resident,
on the,
controller itself.
But if you needed more than 20, okay,

(22:51):
we have additional safety inputs. We have additional
safety outputs. We you also can attach through
the backplane on the DIN rail itself, non
safety IO. Okay? Things like the lights that
are on here. Okay? Those aren't really safety
functions, but we do need IO points to
actually run those. Is that what the gray
module is? That's exactly what that is. Safety.
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Good call.

(23:13):
And again, it's, there's not a really a
standard that says that that they shall be
yellow, but it's kind of an industry convention.
Yeah. Okay? There's a difference between a standard
convention and, yellow kinda calls out as a
safety device and non yellow, for example, would
be a, non safety, and that is a
non safety function.
So again, we have, additional,

(23:33):
IO not only for, the safety but non
safety. And, again, people tend to think that,
the safety itself,
can't do a standard,
operations and standard logic. But, I might point
out here in the function blocks themselves. Okay?
We actually have capabilities like that. Okay? In
the software itself, okay, you take a peek

(23:54):
here. These are just standard logic symbols. Right?
Okay. I have a not, and, or. I
mean, I can do a lot of features
on here and really create
elaborate safety systems. Mhmm. And again, a safety
controller can do some non safety functions. It's
you just can't go the other way around.
A a non safety controller cannot be, utilized,

(24:17):
for safety. Okay? But that's all built into
the software right there. And again, if we
had additional if we wanted EtherCAT, for example.
Okay? EtherCAT was not resident on here. We
would add a separate, comm gateway,
to that system right there, and it would
show up in our report here. Additional gateways,
extension modules,
and any sort of logic that we had

(24:37):
associated with the system itself.
But, again, this report just gets printed up
automatically. It shows, basically
what we saw in the software that's resident
in here too. If you have to go
back and make modifications,
you're obviously going to change the CRC number
because every time you change configuration, you get
a new configuration code.
But, you do get a chance to basically

(24:59):
see, and it's a copy of, whatever that
you had configured there in the report. So
you have the report,
you have the modules,
and then you have your workspace.
And, again, all of this was done virtually.
All we had was, the free software downloaded,
and we ran it,
to run, the system for us. I should've
asked you before you close the report. Do
you get a bill of materials, like, the

(25:21):
actual part numbers you need to order? Yes.
Yes. Absolutely. I'm glad you asked that. Okay.
Run the report. Open it up again. And
our bill of material,
let's It's usually a pretty big one too
because, you know, you you're not gonna be
an expert like they are on their products
or use any data tool to help you
select which products you need, especially since you
just went through and configured it all. And

(25:41):
so there it is. There's your bill of
material. That's the bill of material there. Okay?
We have the controller itself. The card is,
an SD card. Okay. Good point. We should
mention this now.
Yep. The, the SD card itself, okay, is,
specially configured to work with the, this it's
not entirely big. It's only a 512,
megabyte, but it is required and this is
where all of the, safety programs are actually

(26:03):
resident. The nice thing about that is if
you've had if you have multiple safety controllers
in your facility
and you have your recipes,
resident on the card here, you literally can
take this out and pollinate, literally go to
each controller, install it, and then load up
and have have safety programs. So you go
from one controller to the other to the
other, but the recipes are resident on the

(26:25):
card itself. So what how about duplicating the
program? If I if I'm an OEM and
I have a bunch of machines. Right? And
I just wanna duplicate the program. Can I
use the card to do that as well
from machine to machine to machine? Absolutely. You
could do it card to card or if
you did, you know, use your laptop. Okay?
And you have the program on there. Okay.
You save right to the card? You save
it to the card. Yep. Okay. Without having

(26:45):
the controller here, you can save right to
the card. Save right to the card. Oh,
that's a nice feature. Yep. Some people can't
do that. Yep. I won't mention any names.
So yeah. Like I say, the good news
is, it does save to the card. The
bad news is you have to have the
card, as part of it. It needs to
be the company. It needs to be a
wheeling card that's matched for that device. Exactly.
The special call it out. Yep. To close

(27:06):
it out. And then again, the the rest
of, the the bill materials is we have
the e stop, the dual channel closer.
That's that's just the software's
name for the reset switch and a set
of contactors inside. But that is, to answer
your question, that is the, the bill material
there.
Did you have any questions?
Well, you know, he gave me some of
the most popular good. I have not well,

(27:27):
I purposely as you guys know, I purposely
don't look at the companies the first time
I see them because I wanna try to
have a natural reaction like you will the
first time you're watching this episode. Yeah. So,
in any case, Mike was kind enough to
give me some of the questions that come
in. So how about number one? Alright. So
I'm gonna read number one here.
What makes
the Samos I'm sorry. What makes the Samos

(27:48):
Pro Compact ideal for space constraint
applications?
That's a great question.
And, we touched upon this and it has
to do with the actual size of it.
Okay?
As I mentioned, it only occupies,
45 millimeters,
on a DIN rail. Okay? Great. And,
itself is set up with 20 input points,

(28:09):
meaning it's 10 safety devices.
And let's say I had discrete relays. Discrete
relays typically take up 22 and a half
millimeters a piece on the DIN rail space.
22 and a half millimeters
times 10 devices,
okay,
would be occupy
the whole DIN rail here. Okay? For 10
devices using discrete relays. The beauty and the

(28:30):
benefit of having a say a compact like
this, it only occupies 45 millimeters. Okay? So
you have all this additional space for either
expansion modules or other products.
For example, the controls themselves. Yeah. K. No
one says you have to run the controls,
okay, or for safety in a separate cabin.
They oftentimes share the same space in in

(28:50):
the cabin. Cabinet space is valuable. Very real
estate is very valuable. So again, it only
occupies 45 millimeters. It saves an awful lot
of space, holds a lot of devices just
by itself. So, there's an advantage right there.
It makes a quick and easy configuration. Now
you talked about something. I always thought this
was a little odd. So you have an

(29:10):
existing PLC, and then the the word comes
in that whatever equipment you're adding to the
line or maybe it's been reconfigured and you
need to add a safety PLC.
A lot of times, companies will not they're
like, we're not gonna mess with the part
that works.
We're gonna add in a separate safety PLC.
And I think that's
unintuitive for people who you know, if you're
designing a brand new system, you're gonna wanna

(29:32):
design and get to buy a POC that's
a standard POC and a safety POC all
in one. But I don't think that's that's
the opera. Do can you just share some
of your thoughts on applications that you've seen
over the years where they had an existing
control system, but they needed to add a
safety POC? And and that's why they chose
your product because it had to be totally
separate from the existing system. Exactly. Exactly.

(29:53):
You know, it's it's often nice to work
on projects where you're in the design, the
front end. Okay? And you can have it
all integrated and it all works quite nice.
Yeah. Whatever you want. But, the the reality
is that, you know, we're called upon to
add safety to a lot of older legacy
systems.
And, the concept that we always adhere to
is really it's a safety layer. Okay? And

(30:15):
I really try in my classes, I try
to separate control circuits from safety circuits. I
call the control circuit the black circuits, and
I call the safety circuits the red circuits.
And the red circuits always have priority.
Okay? And they have overreach, let's say, of
the black circuits to remove energy
in an emergency situation. I mean, that's what
we're that's what we're here to do. Right?

(30:36):
We're here the logic device is here to
make a decision on an input. It could
be either a detection of a hand or
door opening or whatnot, or in the case
of motion, an encoder signal. Okay?
Identifying,
over speed,
going the wrong direction,
has not reached a zero RPM
state. Okay? That's a a dangerous situation

(30:59):
and it won't open a door. It won't
unlock something until it achieves that state. So,
to your question,
we do a lot of applications
where we have to put safety on as
an afterthought. Yeah. Okay?
And we work again with the controls, but
we never integrate the safety directly. It always
has a priority over it. And the idea

(31:21):
is that the safety system will remove energy
Yeah. From, whatever source. And when I say
energy, it doesn't have to be just electricity.
Right? There could be kinetic energy. Mhmm. Okay?
There could be
Okay? There could be hydraulic energy. Okay? Their
fluid power safety is just as important as
electrical power safety. Okay? Quite honestly. Yeah.
So those have a priority. It removes that

(31:43):
energy, from the source, and then it turns
around and it forms the control circuits.
Okay? And this again, it's it's a little
more painful and a little more complicated sometimes
to add it onto a legacy equipment, but,
it does get added, all the time. Yeah.
And, you know, I know a lot of
the vendors these days are only supporting the
last, maybe, the six or seven years of
software.
If you have a multimillion dollar system that's

(32:05):
full of racks and racks of standard
controls,
you know, upgrading that, just even upgrading the
CPU to get a safety CPU could be
that could be more than than this entire
project. Yeah. And I think that's what I've
seen is, you know, they don't wanna update
the software. They don't wanna have to buy
new laptops. They don't wanna have to stock
new spares. That control system is standalone and

(32:25):
works great. And so they'll whether they go
with the same company or a different company
or a wheel in, they they'll add in
the safety, the PLC
as as a secondary PLC that controls the
safety that's integrated with the safety because that
big expensive system, they can't touch it, and
they can't afford to upgrade it. Just as
a standalone, trying to upgrade that would be
would be,
really overkill. So and that's what I've seen.

(32:48):
And you guys tell let us know in
the comments what you've seen. Now am I
way off?
You know, let let us know in the
comments, and I'd love to hear what your
thoughts are. But let me pitch it back
to you, Mike, and,
after that interruption. Sorry. No problem.
Any other questions by chance? Hey. I have
another,
often asked question.
How does Samos

(33:08):
Pro Compact reduce programming and commissioning
time?
Ah. How does it do that? Well,
let's start off with everybody's favorite word. It's
free. The software is free. Okay? Truly. Easy
to download and, as we just, showed us,
easy to configure.
And, quite honestly, the complaints for a a
lot of system,

(33:28):
setups and a lot of software packages is
the complexity of using it. And, slowly but
surely, software is evolving to the point where
it's very graphical and it's all drag and
drop. Okay? Yeah. And as you saw on
the library, all the ingredients are there. Okay?
And even if you select the wrong thing
and you try to you drag and drop,
you know, the output of one thing into

(33:48):
the input of another thing, and if it
bounces and it won't accept it, you know
you're violating or you're not setting it up
properly.
So slowly but surely, it'll explain to you.
And what you can do in the software
too, if you ever have any questions, I
should have mentioned this when we were looking
at the software, was you can right click
on any of the modules themselves,
and it automatically goes to a help screen
and you get all the details

(34:10):
on that device. And if there are variables,
if there are variables available
to change the features on that. For example,
like a a an or device. Okay? Or
an and gate. Okay? You can pull it
up, drag it into the screen and say,
well, it'll default to, to two. And it
said, well, I need, I need three. I
have three. Okay? I need this and this

(34:30):
and this. Okay? You right click and you
have a variable and a drop down and
you can add another input to that. Oh,
that's cool. Okay. I love how you've combined
the configurator
with the programmer. Yeah. So now it's all
in one. So you get your bill of
materials. You also get to test the program.
You get the simulator built in. Very cool.
That's right. And to, cut down on commissioning
time, again, a lot of this work can
be done prior to actually receiving. So you

(34:52):
have a concept, a safety concept. You do
a risk assessment. You say, okay. I need
the following input devices.
I need this logic device. I'm gonna attach
to these output devices.
And there's time for that to come in.
Okay? And you don't have to wait for
those to come in. Okay? You can actually
get the software, start putting all those pieces
together and setting up the system prior to

(35:13):
the, hardware actually arriving. So, your commissioning time,
you don't start your commissioning time when the
hardware shows up. You're literally done before the
hardware is done. It it comes in.
That's awesome. Yep.
Yep.
Any other questions, Sean? Hey. I got another
one right here. How easy is it to
connect
Samos Pro Compact to existing

(35:35):
control systems?
I think we know the answer to this
one. Go ahead. Gateways.
And again, what we don't have resident, on
board, the the Samos Pro Compact itself, we
have additional,
gateways. Okay? CANopen.
We have EtherCAT. That's quite a popular, gateway
protocol these days. We're able to add just

(35:56):
add an additional card to that and have
that compatibility.
And as you saw on the software, it
showed up. Okay? Mhmm. When you add the
cards, the card shows up and that protocol
shows up. So it's ready as a, an
EtherCAT module,
in an EtherCAT based system. So You said
that it has PROFINET, ETHANIP, and Modbus TCP
built in, which I think is so cool.

(36:16):
Yes. I'm such a fan of companies that
are doing that.
But do you have to do something in
the software to tell it which one you're
gonna use? No. You do not.
In the software itself, it does especially when
you're using the virtual system, it does a
detection,
a health detection.
Yes. Actually, that's how it works. And then,
again, you can go in and make a

(36:37):
a a slight or small adjustments.
You can actually get, addresses, through the software
itself. So Oh, nice. It's it's not again,
it's you're not, programming, you're configuring.
That's awesome. It's it's a huge time savings,
quite honestly. That's awesome. You want me to
go to number four? Sure, please. Let me
ask you this. Is it sustainable? I'm sorry.

(36:57):
Is it suitable for safety
critical applications in demanding
environments? Yeah. We haven't talked about that yet.
Yes.
The the the device itself, typically has,
most electrical devices
in the industry
typically have, an IP 20, rating themselves. Yeah.
So IP 20, it doesn't keep out, a

(37:18):
lot of moisture itself. And quite honestly, these
are typically, put in, cabinets, themselves to protect
them. Okay?
But but, the, the cabinets themselves,
can,
experience,
a lot of temperature variations.
Okay? So, these are rated between a minus
25 c to, plus 65 c. Okay?

(37:38):
So, again, they are, designed for, harsh,
cabinet temperatures, let's say.
Vibration, there are some, values of, it's, it's
shock resistance.
Okay? I had a customer the other day
saying that, he was concerned about, the vibration
that the cabinet was going to receive in
a punch press. Every time the punch press,
there was just this huge vibration.

(37:59):
And we talked about the,
the the shock resistance of the, controller itself
and, mounting techniques.
I mean, in my job as a safety
consultant, as I mentioned, I look at things
holistically.
I talk about things that again, things like
a shock mounting. Okay? We have the safety
light curtains mounted here. At the moment, I
have some standard, t fittings, okay, on the

(38:21):
brackets, your standard ones. But if I was
in a shock environment, I would, you know,
talk with the customer and I would say,
you know what?
Based on what I'm seeing here,
these obviously will handle a certain amount of
shock by themselves. There's no moving parts. Okay?
So it does withstand a certain amount of
shock,
but,
light curtains are notorious for being going out

(38:41):
of alignment. And over a long distance, if
one, the the transmitter,
is, poorly aligned with the receiver, okay, and
there's some shock, then they're gonna lose alignment
with those vibrations and you're gonna have nuisance
stress. Nuisance tripping it. In that situation, I
would tell people, I says, look, we have
isolation dampeners. Okay? And a little rubber, grommets

(39:02):
that you can actually put between the hardware
and give a little bit of, a shock
resistance to the light curtain themselves to help
maintain. These are the kind of, little, advice,
nuggets that we, deliver when we talk about
a system, a holistically system, because we understand.
Like you said, you know, some of these
environments are pretty harsh and demanding.
And the controller, as we mentioned earlier too,

(39:24):
is a PLE.
So the controller itself will never be, you
know, the, the weak link in a safety
system. There are some other devices.
For example, in the motion,
world, when we use a, a Samus motion
and we use, the TUV function blocks for
motion themselves.
In addition to those is a vibration toolbox

(39:45):
in the software itself. Okay? And that helps
fine tune and take out nuisance vibrations that
you're trying to detect pulses from an encoder.
You're not trying to detect, other vibrations.
Okay?
Now the good news is that you can
invoke these things in harsh harsh environments. Okay?
You will knock down okay? According to the

(40:05):
standards, you do knock down your PLE to
PLD. Okay. But PLD is quite, is still
is quite impressive and and robust. And again,
the controller tends not to be the weakest
link in a safety system. But great question.
Yeah. I'm just seeing something else here too.
What is the four amps for? Is that
each output's four amps or No. It's the
high switching power. That way you don't have

(40:25):
to use actuators. Okay? You're able to have
that. So,
again, they they tend to be, kind of
a high power on the output side of
things, and it reduces the need for additional
relays or any any sort of additional devices,
for that. Yeah. How about question number five?
You ready for that one? Sure thing.
Encoder types. Does it have to be a

(40:46):
Wheatland encoder?
I get that all the time.
Actually, no. Okay?
It's just looking for a standard HTL incremental
encoder,
and,
it and in in fact,
the people are using,
non safety encoders too. Okay? There are safety
rated encoders and non safety rated encoders and
they can use it. The good news is

(41:07):
you can use a non safety encoder with
it. The bad news is it does degrade
the PL level. Okay? You can get a
PL level, e by using,
safety rated encoders. Again, redundant. You can do
two tracks. You do four tracks. However you
need. And again, I I gave the example
about,
shaft, shearing and trying to detect whether or

(41:29):
not you have a broken shaft. We mount
an encoder on both ends and match and,
tune up those two signals together. Because soon
as you have a deviation, you know you
have a shaft breakage.
I think we were pretty successful in showing
not only,
the fact that it's it saves a lot
of space on the DIN rail for the
number of devices it's able to manage.
Okay?

(41:49):
It, the input devices, again, can be varied.
Some of them are here, some of them
are not here. But, a lot of typical
devices,
that get applied.
And again,
it's not brand specific. Okay? It's quite agnostic.
Okay? Most of the safety devices in the
industry
work with our controller.
As I mentioned, the the Wieland Safety Controller

(42:11):
is
our own product. Okay? So it's our own
design hardware and both software.
So when we have upgrades and development, again,
the upgrades are free. Okay? We we send
out, and anytime the software gets over, there's
a point release, whatnot. Those are free. Okay?
And, we know a lot of people in
the industry, charge,
for software. There's licensing fees and whatnot, and,

(42:34):
that never happens, with, the wheel and controller
products. Yeah. You know, could you wake up
the HMI? It it looked like the screen
was very well designed. Would you mind tapping
the HMI?
Yeah. So the HMI is good. So let's
talk a little bit about, like, aside from
this, what are the products do you make?
I mean, you make a safety POC. It
looks like you also make an HMI.

(42:55):
Yes. Yes. I'm glad you asked that. By
the way, some of the,
non safety type products,
are actually on here. As you mentioned, the
HMI itself. Okay?
It's a touchscreen,
and, we have various sizes on it. And
what you're seeing here on this demo is
a representation of a CNC machine. Okay. K?
It gives a little bit of a story
behind the devices that go into this. So

(43:17):
for example, I turn it on. I'm running
it. Okay.
Okay. You hear my CNC running? Yeah. Oh,
yeah. There we go. Very robust CNC.
Now I go to open one of the
doors. Okay? Okay. Not only will it stop
the motion, but it'll also show me on
the HMI which particular door I opened up.
Okay. Did you see that? Yeah. Yeah. That

(43:38):
moved.
Okay. And back with that. You see HMI
updating as well? That's right. So the up,
the HMI updates itself and again, it continues
to tell the situation.
And that's what's nice about sending the output
of this, over this, Ethernet,
port here, to the HMI itself that when
you have a trip. Okay? Look, I have
several safety devices here. I have light curtains.

(44:00):
I have three door switches here. I have,
a an analog, position switch, a distance switch
here. I also have an e stop here.
Various devices. If I have a trip, okay,
and if this was a real machine in
a facility, I'd have a light stack and
I'd have a light flashing. You would come
up to the machine saying,
which device tripped? I don't know. You can

(44:20):
look at the HMI and either have a
graphical display of the machine itself or a
table. Okay? It would show all the devices
and it would have an indicator of which
one it is. So you'd come to the
machine, you say, oh, I see what it
was. It was that door switch. I close
the door and then I have to reset
it. Okay? A safety system requires a manual
reset. You just don't close the door, the

(44:41):
machine starts up automatically like that.
Okay? And then I did a reset, and
then I also did a machine start.
And now And my CNC is back up
and running. That's excellent. That is excellent. So
you're more than just safety PLCs.
That's right. No. We do the safety PLCs.
We do the light curtains. We do all
these door switches. We have three grades of

(45:03):
door switches here. The simplest technology is standard
key, door interlock. Okay? Yep. And a standard,
fork, key interlock. The switch goes on the
frame. The key goes on the door. Open
the door, key comes out and it indicates
to the system that there's an intrusion.
Now
in addition to that, those are contact switches.
Okay? We have this version here. We have

(45:23):
a secondary version that's a little bit bigger
that has a solver in it, and there's
a locking, guard locking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. K?
Therefore, if I have an application where I
want to go into the cell, but the
cell presents a hazard and the hazard has
to either cool off or there has to
be a a coast down period, say 60
or whatnot, A timer is used inside the

(45:44):
controller
and once sixty seconds elapse, it sends a
signal of the solenoid to release the door
lock and allow you to go into the
cell. Okay? Keep it. And then there's other
applications where non contact is preferred. And we
have two versions of non contact here. Okay?
One is a coated magnetic. Okay? There are
several codes available,
and so you can't take another,

(46:06):
magnet and fake it out. Big thing. Right?
It has to be coded. Yeah. Bypassing. Yeah.
Bad bad word in the safety world.
I get calls. People say, hey. I have
door interlocks. I keep finding the keys in
there, but they're not attached to the, to
the door anymore. And I said, okay.
And we can improve the robustness of the
safety system by switching out keyed interlocks to

(46:26):
a coated magnetic switch. And these coated magnetic
switches do not work with refrigerator magnets. Okay?
It takes a coated actuator
to actually close this. But,
people that have a lot of these can
find another matching actuator and fake these out.
And we'll get a call. Mike, I'm getting
my magnetic switches being bypassed. What can we
do? The next level of technology up is

(46:47):
RFID.
Oh. Okay? RFID is high coded. Okay? High
coded. And and if you high coded means
that you have a thousand or more codes.
And if you have a thousand more codes,
nobody is gonna find another matching actuator
to fake out the switch and try to
bypass it. When you buy it, do you
get it just random from the shelf or
You get it initially random and then there's

(47:08):
a sequence where you, cycle the power to
do and change the codes. Oh, okay. So
you can actually get multiple codes. Okay? Okay.
That and again, so we start out with
the basic technology. The next step up is
magnetic, and the highest level technology is RFID
for door switches.
Okay? So,
and let me see. Now in addition to

(47:28):
all of this, okay, you're gonna notice that,
I have
Turn the speed down. So Oh. Oh. I
went I went back. Sorry. Reverse the direction.
That's okay.
Or we coulda we coulda just, put our
hand in the light curtain or whatnot. Oh,
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But,
in addition to the products, the safety products
and the HMIs, we sell power supplies. Okay.

(47:50):
Okay. So, yeah, we have our own power
supplies. As a matter of fact, I always
advocate people that when they have a safety
system is to have a dedicated power supply.
Yes. They're not really expensive and for the
peace of mind. Okay? And for the robustness
and integrity of the safety system is to
have a separate power supply running the safety
system alone as opposed to sharing it from
some other things. Okay? Yeah. You don't have

(48:12):
to worry about spikes in the system. You
don't have to worry about,
in rush currents or whatnot.
And, again, it's dedicated
and it won't interfere with the functions of
the safety because let's face it, you're trying
to maintain,
say PLD or PLE safety system.
And, the
the best thing that you could do is,
it make the power supply independent. Okay?

(48:34):
It makes the safety system robust and safer.
Okay?
You always have an eye towards making, the
application as safe as possible.
Now,
in addition to, the HMIs, the power supplies
in here, just within the system here, some
of the other products that Whelan offers are
distributed power systems. Okay? And as I mentioned
in the beginning,

(48:55):
Whelan is famous for their terminal blocks. Yes.
Okay?
And again, our catalog is full of, industrial
automation,
pieces. We really try to a bridge, from
device to device in the automation world,
all these filler,
and detail type products,
gateway switches. We have managed and unmanaged switches
too, by the way. Okay? Oh,

(49:17):
Yes. You have switches as well. We do.
We do. I invite you to, take a
look at our website,
wheelen,uh,-electric,uh,.com.
And, it has a lot of good information,
and you'll see the full catalog of information.
Today, really, we were just kinda covering, safety,
but it's really the tip of the iceberg
of the, Wheeling portfolio.
Yeah. And we will conclude not only an

(49:38):
end of show slide here so you can
see all the important stuff. We'll also include
all these links
in the description.
So wherever you're watching, you'll have links to
everything we're talking about so you don't have
to go and hunt it down and, like,
you know, how do I spell wheel end?
And all the links are there. We'll put
the slide up on the screen as well
so you guys can see all that good

(49:58):
information.
And, Mike, with that, was there anything else
we wanted to cover today?
I think we covered it, pretty thoroughly.
I wanted to make sure that,
I showed you the software because, you know,
a lot of manufacturers,
create the box and a little the little
safety PLC.
And, quite honestly, the the magic of the

(50:18):
PLC itself isn't the hardware, isn't the 45
millimeters resin case itself. It's the actual software.
How easy to use, how comprehensive it is,
what information it'll do for you. Okay?
And again, we showed that we have a,
workspace,
drag and drop, library, pull the devices in.
We have motion, we have presses, we have

(50:39):
combustion technology,
muting. We have a lot of different libraries,
function blocks, certified function blocks to drag into
the workspace.
It creates the report. And, basically,
again, it just shows you, the creation of
your system
short of hardware. Of course, when you hook
up your hardware, you do a synchronization.
Okay? And now you can make your tweaks.

(50:59):
You may find that your virtual system was
better than the hardware list that you created,
and you may want to upgrade that at
some point. Okay?
The nice thing about a controller is it's
infinitely repurposable.
Okay? You program it one way, one day,
and if you add another device, that's not
a problem. That's easy to go in the
software, add another device. Okay?

(51:21):
I subtract a device, change out devices, whatnot.
It's easy enough to use. So, yes.
Again, the Samos controller,
is a leading product for us in the
safety,
product portfolio for Wieland.
And, again, we lead off with, our our
software, the Samos plan software. Yeah. And I
appreciate it. Just that short demo you did

(51:41):
really helps. Like, I feel like I could
get in there and start doing stuff. You
know, when you open something up for the
first time, if you've never seen a demo
of it, it can be like deer in
the headlights type of and I've been there
many times myself. So thank you for not
only talking to us about the hardware, talking
to us about your company, but also giving
us that software demo as well. And I
wanna thank you for coming out

(52:03):
and driving all the way out here, three
hours to get out here to do an
in live.
He doesn't Mike doesn't know this. He's the
first one to come and do a live.
I had to clean up all last night.
The place was so messy, but he was
actually the first vendor to come out and
do a live, and I really enjoyed having
him here, medium,
and the preshow and, and whatnot. But I
also wanna thank Wheelan for sponsoring this episode

(52:25):
so there'll be no ads on it. Didn't
you guys enjoy having no ads during the
episode?
We don't make a lot of money from
those ads. It's pennies. So thank you to
please tell your, people to thank you very
much for sponsoring this episode so we can
bring all this information
to the audience without any nasty ads. And
with that, any final words? No. No. Thank
you, Sean, for having me. Appreciate your hospitality,

(52:46):
and, you did a great cleanup job here.
It looks wonderful here.
And it's a it's a great, for, format
here for us to, show off our product
here. Well, thank you, Michael. I hope you
come back sometime. I'm looking forward to it.
Thank you.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}First Look: Samos Pro Safety Controller (S2E15)

Episode Transcript

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First Look: Samos Pro Safety Controller (S2E15)

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