maxGUARD wins a Plant Engineering 2018 Product of the Year Award

RICHMOND, VA (April 19, 2019) — Weidmuller is excited to announce the receipt of a Product of the Year award from Plant Engineering magazine for their maxGUARD Terminal Block Load Monitoring and Protection System. The Plant Engineering Product of the Year competition recognizes new and innovative solutions in product development. This year’s program included 15 product categories with 48 winners determined by votes from the magazine readers. Weidmuller was presented with the silver award in the Electrical Safety Category at the April 8th Engineering Awards in Manufacturing dinner.

The maxGUARD system is a key component in Weidmuller’s Klippon® Connect portfolio of products and services for panel building. With maxGUARD, the electronic load monitoring ELM devices combined with distribution terminal blocks can be customized to provide selective load protection in 24V DC power distributed systems for industrial automation applications. With combining load monitoring and potential distribution into one complete solution, this offers users time-savings during installation, increased safety against failure, and DIN-rail space savings while being highly service friendly.

The modular maxGUARD system is designed to meet specific requirements for automation control panels inall areas (including Hazardous C1D2 and IEC EX). It contains three main cross-connection channels– positive, negative and internal signaling. This design increases the number of possible contacts from the electronic load monitoring device outputs (positive and negative) into the terminal blocks, providing efficient connections for the distribution board loads, as well as reduced wiring. Integrated test points in maxGUARD’s terminals and a disconnect lever for load circuit galvanic isolation helps to simplify testing and troubleshooting.

Available in a range of single-channel and four-channel variations (both standard and conformal coating), maxGUARD provides application flexibility for custom solutions. The space-saving maxGUARD modules have a 6.1mm housing and feature push-in connection technology. The rated operating voltage is 24V DC, and the complete system has a maximum current capacity of 40A. The wide operating temperature range extends from -25°C to +55°C (without derating). The terminal cross-sections are 16mm² for the feed-in module, 2.5mm² for the electronic load monitoring (ELM), and 1.5mm² at the top and 2.5mm² at the bottom of the potential distribution terminal block. maxGUARD modules are cULus listed, Class 2 Certified (1A, 2A and 4A modules), CE rated and carry a wide range of global approvals. maxGuard can be pre-configured using the Weidmuller Configurator, a free software download available on the Weidmuller website.

Weidmuller’s focus is to collaborate with customers and alliances around the world with products, solutions and services in the industrial environment of power, signal and data. The company develops innovative, sustainable and useful solutions that set standards in industrial connectivity today and continually work toward providing solutions for the technology challenges of tomorrow. The Weidmuller Group owns manufacturing plants, sales companies and representatives in more than 80 countries.