I know that safety is all the rage these days, but we have four machines which came outfited with Allen Bradley Rockwell Guardmaster Safety Relays and Sophia Safety Switches.

So far on average we have had two switches per month fail by shorting closed. The indicator circuit does not function either in these cases. The average downtime is three hours and I can;t help feel that a beter switch or design would save a lot of downtime.

Now part of my dislike for these machines rests with the System Integrator. There are five switches on each machine but rather than wiring all 5 completely back to a six switch controller they used a two switch controller and seriesed the switches.

Bottom Line - If considering Sophia Safety Switches think long and hard. Just my $0.02