Compact safety curtains selection list

If you spend time around presses, robots or fast conveyors, you already know this: safety light curtains are not just a line on the BOM. They decide how close your team dare to stand, how fast the machine can run, and if EHS will sign off or not.

When space is tight, compact safety light curtains are usually the first option. On NEUER STAR we group safety light curtains into clear families: Compact Safety Light Curtain, Front Ultra-Thin, General Use, Heavy Machine, High-Precision, Multi-Sided Access Protection, Waterproof and more. That makes picking much easier for machine builders and safety guys.

Risk level and Type 4 compact safety light curtain selection

The real starting point is always risk level, not price or pretty housing.

Ask yourself one simple question:

If someone reaches in and the machine doesn’t stop, how bad it can be?

• If you’re dealing with presses, press brakes, robot welding, high-speed cutting or injection molding, the answer is usually “pretty bad”. That’s high risk. You should stay with Type 4 compact safety light curtain and high performance level.
• Only when worst case is just light injury, low force, no crushing, then Type 2 might be fine. But honestly this is rare in serious industrial lines.

NEW STAR’s compact range is built exactly for this kind of duty. For example, the DGD0810 guardshield Sicherheitslichtvorhang is a Type 4 compact safety light curtain designed for perimeter and access guarding around hazardous points in factory automation.

Same idea with the DGD3210 Handsicherheitssensor. It’s a high-resolution Type 4 compact safety light curtain aimed at point-of-operation guarding for hands and fingers, so it fits press brakes, small cutting stations, bending machines and other risky tooling zones.

If your risk assessment says “serious injury possible”, don’t try to save by shifting to lower grade devices. That usually ends with more paperwork and angry safety manager later.

Perimeter guarding safety light curtain vs point-of-operation guarding

You can split compact safety curtain jobs into two big buckets.

• Perimeter guarding safety light curtain
  You mount a compact curtain like DGD0810 outside the danger zone. When someone walks in or reaches through, it trips the safety loop. Range is longer, protection height can be small if the opening is small, and you mainly need to detect that a body part or full body is inside the zone.
• Point-of-operation compact safety light curtain
  On the operator side of a press brake or injection molding machine, you’re protecting the tooling area itself. Here you need high resolution and small safety distance. The DGD3210 Handsicherheitssensor fits this use: tight 10 mm spacing, compact housing, good range, and it’s clearly positioned for finger and hand protection at point-of-operation.

If you mix these two duties, you end up with wrong resolution, wrong mounting, and lots of nuisance trips that operators hate.

Resolution and protection height in compact safety light curtains

Once risk level is clear, the next filter in your compact safety curtains selection list is resolution and protection height.

Think in very simple terms: what exactly you want to detect, and how big is the opening?

From NEW STAR’s compact models:

• DGD0810 guardshield Sicherheitslichtvorhang
  • Beam space: 10 mm
  • Protect height: 70 mm
  • Beams: 8
  • Housing: 22 × 30 mm
• DGD1620 Sicherheitslichtvorhangsteuerung
  • Beam space: 20 mm
  • Protect height: 300 mm
  • Range: 1.6 m
  • Housing: 22 × 30 mm
• DGD3210 Handsicherheitssensor
  • Beam space: 10 mm
  • Protect height: 310 mm
  • Range: 3.2 m
  • Housing: 22 × 30 mm

Basic rule (yeah it’s not perfect, but works on most projects):

• 10 mm beam space → finger and hand protection, very close to the dangerous part.
• 20 mm beam space → hand / wrist, small access windows, light guarding of working space.
• Protection height → just cover the opening. No need to protect empty metal above if nobody can go through that space.

Compact curtains let you keep this resolution and just-enough height in a slim stick, so you don’t block visibility and don’t fight with the frame.

Housing size, response time and installation of compact safety light curtain

Space is the pain point on many machine frames. The drawing says “we have room”, then you go on site and real space is 22 mm plus some dust.

NEW STAR compact safety light curtains, like DGD0810, DGD1620und DGD3210, all use a 22 × 30 mm cross-section, work on DC24 V, and keep response time within a fast few milliseconds range. Power draw stays low and all three have built-in short-circuit and over-voltage protection.

This makes life easier when you retrofit:

• You can hide the light curtain inside the guarding post or door frame without redesign.
• Fast response lets you keep a short safety distance, so operators can stand closer and still be safe.
• Mounting hardware and wiring pattern are similar, so your maintenance people only learn one style.

Compact safety light curtain for packaging and logistics equipment

Map this to real lines and it becomes more clear:

• Packaging and wrapping machines
  Compact curtains protect in-feed and out-feed openings where cartons or bags pass through. You keep the framework slim and still meet safety demands.
• Sorting and DWS lines
  Compact safety curtains can guard the worker side of the conveyor, while measurement light curtains like the SWP2840 industrial light curtains ODM do size detection and dimensioning further down the line.
• Small robot cells
  Instead of full fencing, you guard access windows with compact curtains and keep the cell footprint inside the customer’s layout.

This kind of setup is common in real factory, not only in brochure.

Environment rating and IP64 compact safety light curtains for standard industrial environment

Most of your machines run in classic standard industrial environment: some dust, oil mist, maybe coolant splash, but not full wash-down.

For that kind of duty, the compact models DGD0810, DGD1620und DGD3210 have:

• Application: standard industrial environment
• Protection grade: IP64
• Operating temperature around –10 °C to 55 °C
• Humidity range up to 95 %RH

That covers metalworking, plastics, 3C electronics, EV battery modules, automotive sub-assembly, woodworking and board processing, many logistics and warehousing tasks.

If you go into real wash-down, food, beverage or chemical duty, you switch to Wasserdichter Sicherheitslichtvorhang or special housings. NEW STAR keeps these as a separate product line, so you don’t confuse one spec with another.

Front ultra-thin safety light curtain vs compact profile

Sometimes the question is not “compact or big”, but from which side you want to save space.

• A Kompakter Sicherheitslichtvorhang with 22 × 30 mm profile is perfect when you mount it on the side of a frame or inside a post.
• A Front Ultra-Thin safety light curtain like the DCBZ1240-Infrarot-Vorhang gives you a very slim front view and 40 mm beam spacing, good for perimeter guarding of narrow slots and doorways.

Use compact when you hide it in the frame, use front ultra-thin when your door or glass panel is almost flush and every millimeter matters.

Function and integration: safety light curtain controller DGD1620

A lot of engineers are tired of “spaghetti safety” – separate safety relay, separate curtain, and too many wires.

Die DGD1620 Sicherheitslichtvorhangsteuerung solves that by packing a Type 4 compact safety light curtain with integrated controller into one stick. Range is 1.6 m with 20 mm resolution and 300 mm protect height, so it fits area guarding and access control on packaging lines, robot loading stations and small machining cells.

You still get:

• Compact 22 × 30 mm housing
• Fast response time for short safety distance
• PNP outputs, automatic reset, clear status LEDs

This makes new projects simpler and also helps when you do safety upgrade on old equipment. Wiring gets cleaner, and troubleshooting for maintenance guys is more straight forward.

Compact safety curtains selection table (NEW STAR models)

Here’s a quick table that you can use as a small compact safety curtains selection list for common projects.

You can add front ultra-thin models like DCBZ1240-Infrarot-Vorhang or wholesale units like SWP2840 industrial light curtains ODM on top of this list when you need measurement, DWS dimensioning or special layouts.

How NEW STAR supports OEM and compact safety light curtain projects

Most of the time you’re not buying just one pair. You might be an equipment builder, automation integrator, EHS manager or production engineer who needs the same spec across many machines and maybe across different plants.

NEW STAR positions itself as a Hersteller von Sicherheitssensoren für Maschinen aus einer Hand, supplying safety & measurement light curtains, laser scanners, safety mats, interlock switches, photoelectric and flow sensors, with OEM / ODM service from sample stage to mass production. For you this means:

• You can standardize your compact safety light curtain choice across packaging, logistics, press, injection molding, 3C assembly, woodworking and other lines.
• You can ask for custom protective height, special connectors, logo, cable length, even non-standard arrangement if needed.
• Your maintenance, EHS and purchasing teams deal with one family instead of a mix of random brands.

So the best way to use a compact safety curtains selection list is simple:

1. Pick the risk level and decide that you stay with Typ 4 for critical equipment.
2. Choose resolution and height based on body part and opening size.
3. Decide housing style: compact profile or front ultra-thin, depending on your frame.
4. From there, pick 2–3 reference models from NEW STAR compact and related families and reuse them across projects.

If you’re not sure which model fits a press, a robot cell, a packaging in-feed or a DWS station, send your layout and rough risk info to the NEW STAR team. They work with OEM, integrators and safety people every day, and they can help you lock the right compact safety light curtain before you cut steel or change guarding.