At Scarboro Steel Works, a steel fabrication facility, two new remote-controlled cranes from TE were installed in an outdoor area, and two existing cranes were recently retrofitted with the same Panther control systems. All the cranes have a 60ft span and feature Stahl SH Series wire rope hoists.

TE also supplied Panther controls for cranes at CPC Pumps International, a manufacturer of heavy-duty industrial pumps. TE has installed more than 25 cranes to the company over a ten-year period, all of which have a span of 35ft and also use Stahl SH Series wire rope hoists.

TE offers the full range of Tele Radio controls, including the Panther range which offers up to 500m range and is certified under EN ISO 13849-1, Functional Safety of Machinery, as CAT3, PLd.

The Panther controls operate in the 2.4GHz frequency using 802.15.4 communication with direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS), says Tele Radio, allowing for interference-free operation of hundreds of systems in the same area at the same time, without having to set specific channels or keep complicated frequency logs. This is achieved by providing 16 channels, each allowing simultaneous operation of up to 12 systems within a single frequency channel.

The primary benefit of the Panther line is safety, adds Tele Radio, with transmitters sending repeated ‘stay-alive pulses’ to the receiver, causing the safety relay or relays to drop if the receiver is no longer receiving the transmitter’s signal, due to being out of range, a dead battery, a broken transmitter, and so forth.

The Panther controls can also work with up to 95% of common overhead crane and hoisting applications, including single- and dual-hoist cranes and tandem cranes, with up to four cranes controlled by a single transmitter. For more complex operations, Tele Radio offers the SIL3 PLe-certified Tiger line, which enables custom configurations.

Ara Hagopian, general manager at TE, said: “Put simply, we like the quality, durability and price point of the Tele Radio Panther system, and we’re always happy to pass it onto our customers. The biggest advantage about this product is that it is very reliable, easy to program and we can complete most of that programming during service from the floor without having to go up to the receiver mounted on the crane.”