CONTROLS
Simple, yet effective: pendant controls have been a mainstay of control systems for decades.
group standardisation for operator familiarity and spare parts commonality. Sabre also uses frequency hopping to allow up to 50 systems to run simultaneously.
Steady and guaranteed communications are critical to safety Safety is a major consideration here. Any system – in particular any wireless remote control system – must be certain of giving uninterrupted communication between operator and crane. The degree of certainty is measurable and can be given a number: it is known as the Performance Level, or PL, number. It is laid down in ISO 13849-1:2006 and it defines the ability of safety related parts of control systems to perform a safety function under foreseeable conditions. PL-a is the least reliable; PL-e is the highest. A rating of PL-d means that the probability of dangerous failure in any hour of use lies between .00001% and .0001%. Cattron are major makers of wireless control
Radio control, here from Teleradio,
enables safer working from a distance.
26 | March 2026 |
www.hoistmagazine.com
systems, offering both belly-box and hand-held control units. “The minimum safety requirement for a crane remote control system will typically be between Performance Level c and Performance Level d ,” says the company, “with most electric overhead travelling cranes falling into a PL-d category. PL-d can be achieved with a category 3 (dual channel, two microcontroller) system.” Their product lines include the Remtron system, which meets PL-d safety standards. The Cattron Control line offers a full range of handheld pushbutton to full-sized standard or engineered-to-order belly- box style transmitters that allow for combinations of switches, paddles and joysticks for crane applications. Beside wireless failure there is another, simpler, means by which communication could be interrupted: if the operator trips, or drops the control box, or falls injured on it in such a way that buttons are accidentally pressed or held down. Many manufacturers, therefore, have a so-called ‘Deadman switch’ – more strictly, a push-to-operate switch – that must be held down
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