Safety Lights
LED Safety & Speciality Lights
LED Safety Lighting Information
In today's fast paced and efficiency focused commercial and industrial environments, workplace safety has never been more critical for employees and personnel. This is especially true when heavy machinery is involved, such as overhead cranes, presses and manufacturing equipment. In workplaces like this, there is a very real possibility of individuals being seriously injured or killed by the equipment they use on a daily basis, which necessitates certain safety measures that go above and beyond the typical workplace safety protocols.
One of the most popular and effective ways of improving safety in the workplace is through the use of LED safety lighting. There are various types of safety lights, as well as different types of applications in the workplace for their use. Some of these lights use high powered LEDs to create safety zones around equipment such as cranes, presses and large moving machinery. Other types are used as general purpose warning lighting that emits a broad non-directional light on the piece of equipment itself, making workers and other personnel aware of its presence.
Types of Safety Lighting
There are several types of safety lights available that are commonly used in commercial and industrial applications. The primary types used are known as warning lights, crane safety lights and sign projector lights. All of these types of lights are intended to improve workplace safety and awareness, although they operate in different manners. They also use similar high powered LED technology that creates powerful lumen output, requiring zero maintenance and boasting an exceptionally long service life.
Warning Lights
These are a general purpose type of warning light that work on a variety of different types of equipment. Designed to be mounted on stationary or mobile pieces of machinery, these lights project out a non-directional beam that gives clear notification to any personnel in the vicinity that equipment is in use and to be alert for danger. Because they use an external driver, the light itself is compact and easy to mount, allowing for optimal light placement and the bulky driver to be mounted in a more convenient location.
Because many accidents involving machinery are due to a lack of situational awareness, these lights are exceptionally effective at increasing safety. Thanks to advancements in modern LED technology, these lights are able to produce intense lumen output while drawing minimal power.
This is especially important with mobile machinery such as forklifts, portable scissor lifts, crane trucks, backhoes and other types of equipment that will be using its onboard electrical system to power any extra accessories such as warning lights. In fact, when compared to traditional warning lights, this massive improvement in efficiency allows for even more lights to be mounted on equipment without having to upgrade a vehicle's electrical system - making safety even easier.
Crane Lighting
A more specific type of warning lighting, these lights are designed to mount on cranes or other overhead machinery where it is vital that there is an exclusion zone below to prevent workers and personnel from walking under dangerous equipment. They use two different types of beams to direct light into specific areas to create these exclusion zones.
The first of these are circular spotlight style beams, which are the easiest to set up and provide personnel with a basic outline of the area they should stay out of. The second type are linear style beams, which create a clearly defined linear beam of light to clearly outline one side of an exclusion zone. Certain crane safety lights are adaptable to be used either as spotlight or linear style, with a simple lens cover change.
While linear beam crane lights take a bit more effort to set up, they are usually the most effective types for lower mounting configurations. Designed with a yoke style mounting bracket, these lights are easily mounted to flat surfaces such as the sides of crane heads. For more specialty installations, custom brackets can easily be fabricated to mount the lights using standardized holes on the sides of the fixture.
Spotlight style crane safety lights are easier to set up due to the fact that their beam is circular and therefore the orientation of the mount is inconsequential. They are most popular in applications where the light is mounted from high up thanks to their exceptionally high lumen output.
Sign Projector Lighting
This is the most specialized type of safety lighting, and is designed to project specific types of virtual signage on flat surfaces such as walls, floors, doors, etc. Sign projector lights can be mounted a distance away from the actual sign location, making the installation pretty straightforward. These projectors are excellent for improving safety as the signs they project onto surfaces are often more easily visible than traditional signage and do not wear out or get damaged.
These signs are useful for a number different reasons - namely for providing critical safety information to workers and personnel in the areas such as designating walkways for specific types of traffic, as well as areas that are temporarily off limits or closed. This is especially convenient for situations where access to areas is changing on a regular basis, which would normally require traditional signage to be physically changed out. With sign projector safety lighting, changing signage is as simple as a push of a button.