Incremental encoders for use in functional safety applications

Leine & Linde has for many years supported our customers with information regarding our encoders and their input within different application for best use. We are therefore now ready to take the next step forward and help our customers succeed with the encoders in functional safety applications, which are referring to human safety according to the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC. The incremental encoders from Leine & Linde are an important part of safety applications regarding speed feedback. Therefore we are now offering our customers the reliability values required to calculate on a functional safety system where our encoders are used as the input components. 

Available for SIL2 or PLd applications

The reliability value we provide for our encoders is either the MTTFd value for the performance level, PL, according to EN ISO 13849-1 or the PFHd value for the safety integrity level, SIL according to IEC 61508. These values are available for our incremental analogue and digital encoders within the 500 and 800 series. This information together with the reliability information of the complete functional safety system provides the estimation of the risk reduction level of it. A common use of our incremental encoders are in SIL2/PLd applications, however you can achieve different levels of risk reduction depending on the encoder input and the system architecture, from a minimum level of SIL1/PLc to a maximum level SIL3/PLe. 

For Leine & Linde the goal within the field of functional safety is to support our customer with the right information, to create an understanding for what functional safety is really all about and how we can be a part of it together with our customers.