Tower lights, also known as signal lights, indicator lights, or andon lights, have a rich history that spans several decades. These devices are crucial in industrial settings, serving as visual and audible signals to communicate the status of machines or processes. The evolution of tower lights reflects broader trends in industrial automation and safety.
In the early days, tower lights were simple visual indicators. They typically consisted of basic incandescent bulbs housed in a single, multi-tiered column. Each tier represented a different status, such as green for normal operation, yellow for a warning, and red for a critical issue. These early tower lights were manually operated and relied heavily on human observation and intervention.
As industries began to embrace automation, tower lights evolved to integrate with control systems. This integration allowed tower lights to provide real-time feedback on machine status without requiring constant human monitoring. The introduction of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) enabled more complex signaling, such as flashing lights for urgent warnings or combining different colors to indicate multiple states.
