Hello! My name is Rob and I live in a small town which is located about 50 miles outside of Sydney. Now and again, I like to visit my brother who works at an industrial plant in the city. When I visit him, my brother lets me into his office and gives me tours around the plant. They produce all kinds of cool things using the tools they have there. However, I recently learnt they didn't always own the things they needed to complete the job and would instead hire them. I learnt all kinds of cool things about hiring industrial equipment. Although I don't work in the industry, I wanted to share what I had learnt with the rest of the world.
Conveyor belts are necessary pieces of equipment for a wide range of industries and businesses, but they can also be incredibly dangerous when used improperly; consequently, conveyor guards are widely used to prevent workers becoming caught in hazardous moving parts and are virtually always legally mandatory.
However, fitting suitable guards to the most dangerous sections of your conveyor belts isn't all you can do to improve workplace safety, and a number of accessories are available that can further increase the functionality of conveyor guards. Some of the most useful optional extras for conveyor guards are listed below:
Handles
Whether your conveyor belt guards are free-standing or attached directly to your conveyor belts, they will have to be removed from time to time for essential maintenance and repairs on deactivated conveyors. As such, handles are a popular addition to guard sections that protect key areas of conveyor belts.
Conveyor guard handles attach directly to the mesh of the guard, and they can be fitted to existing guards as easily as new ones using simple tools. When properly fitted, these handles make removing and replacing guard sections much easier, and they are particularly useful for handling large, heavy sections.
Inspection hatches
If your conveyor guards are especially large and robust, even removing small sections for maintenance and inspection can be a hassle. In these circumstances, you may be better off fitting inspection hatches to your existing guards or purchasing guards with inspection hatches already fitted.
These hatches are lockable when not in use and flip open when required to provide a small gap in your guards through which maintenance and repairs can be performed. Using inspection hatches can be a great way to reduce maintenance downtime without undermining the safety your conveyor guards provide, saving your maintenance crews from having to remove and replace whole sections of guard to inspect a single component.
If you choose to have these hatches installed in your guards, ensure that they are placed over sections of your conveyor that require the most regular maintenance. You should also ensure that the hatches are clearly marked to prevent accidents.
Guard caddies
These simple devices are essentially small, robust toolboxes that are attached to the mesh of your conveyor guards and can be used to carry a wide variety of useful objects. For example, many conveyor guards are attached to their conveyors with cable ties, which provide security but can easily be removed for maintenance tasks—keeping a supply of cable ties and tie clippers in your guard caddies can speed up the removal and replacement of guards dramatically, helping to reduce conveyor downtime.