When large protective fence systems are built around large plants, it is usually clear to everyone involved that a safety distance is necessary between the protective fence and the plant. This is usually due to the fact that one wants to walk along the inside of the fence.
With small machines, it is different. There I see sometimes a fence directly at the machine - this isn't necessarily wrong, because the machine is allowed to be directly behind the fence - only the danger area is not.
All openings in the protective fence require a safety distance behind the opening from the point of danger. This also applies to the mesh of a lattice fence.
You have to take into account that you could put the front part of your hand through the meshes of the fence. And as we all know, the standard assumes very narrow long hands. In order to avoid reaching into a danger zone, the danger zone must have a small safety distance from the fence - and in the case of safety fences, 20 cm between the safety fence and the danger zone is sufficient.
But smaller distances are also possible. I looked at the manufacturers of protective fences on the Internet and wrote down a few mesh sizes that are available in stores:
For all mesh sizes that you see here, a distance of 20 cm to the danger zone is sufficient. For some, even 12 cm is sufficient.
What does the standard say?
The following applies to openings in the protective fence:
If the openings are square, you need a safety distance of 20 cm to the nearest point of danger, if the opening is not larger than 4 cm. If the openings had a side length of no more than 3 cm, even 12 cm distance to the nearest point of danger would be sufficient.
If the meshes of the lattice fence are slit-shaped, the slits must be 2 cm or less so that only part of the hand fits through. Then the distance to the next danger point must be at least 12 cm. According to the standard, the slots may even be 1 m or longer, it does not matter at all as long as the slot height is 2 cm.
The slot may be 3 cm high if it is a short slot - more precisely if it is not longer than 6.5 cm. Then the thumb acts as a limit, i.e. you can't get your whole hand into the slit. And this is crucial, because where the whole hand fits through, the arm would also fit through. However, the distance to the nearest danger point must then be somewhat greater, namely at least 20 cm. Axelent has chosen a slot length of 5 cm for the 3 cm high slot. The slot could be a little longer, but not longer than 6.5 cm.
Because of the different safety distances, Axelent has 2 slot widths on offer and has also shown the described difference very nicely on its website.
So you can see that with a distance of 20 cm from the fence to the danger zone you are on the safe side. If you need to save space, you can use narrower meshes and thus shorten the distance to 12 cm.
The video, the translation of which you can see here, can be found at:
If you would like to purchase a standards search, you can find it at
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