How to Keep a Laser Power Sensor Clean

Harsh.

Extreme.

Noisy.

These are a few words used to describe an industrial environment.

What about your laser sensor?  Will it survive this?

You might be thinking: “If the sensor can deal with a 10 kW beam of intense laser light, it can deal with anything.”

However, this isn’t necessarily true. What makes matters worse is that you need to worry not only about the physical sensor breaking, but also any damage that will ruin the accuracy of the laser measurement.

That could be dust, debris, or any number of things.

You might be thinking now: “How could I possibly keep a sensor clean in such a messy, dynamic area?”

 

Sensor Cleaning

First, you should know that even after your sensor gets dirty, it’s not too late.  Check this table to see which cleaning agents can be used with your sensor.

But being in a factory, you may not have access to your sensor all the time, and even if you do, it isn’t practical to clean it all the time.

So you need to prevent the sensor from getting dirty in the first place.

Protective Sensor Housing

Ophir has a new protective cover accessory for some high power sensors.

The sensor is completely blocked until it’s time for a measurement to be taken.  Then a shutter is opened to expose the aperture, the laser is measured, and the shutter closes again.

The shutter uses a solenoid set as normally closed.  Send an electrical voltage signal to open it and then when the signal stops the shutter automatically closes.

For more information take a look at the protective housing datasheet (PDF).