Small rigid router - Design advise needed

[Neale]

Sorry for my ignorance but what does this thing do on a high level and where does it fit in? Which model number should I be looking for to get some docs?

In crude terms, imagine two relays in parallel, both powered by a feed via the normally-closed estop switch. Each relay has a normally-open contact and these are wired in series and used to supply a control voltage to the external system - exactly what it does is up to you. So, in operation, both relays are activated, both relay contacts closed, and external system enabled. Hit the estop, the relays drop out, and the external system is disabled. Two relays mean that even if one contact sticks, the estop still works. For greater reliability, the two relays can be fed via a double-pole estop switch and two cables although I'm not sure if many people go this far. As it stands, though, the system would restart when the estop button is released or unlocked, so the safety relay box has a couple more relays which are associated with a reset or enable external switch which has to be pressed to get the main relays into their operational state. My Pilz relay actually has three sets of contacts so it can control three independent external systems/devices (maybe enable inputs on stepper drivers, ditto on VFD, and estop input to Mach3, for example). And that's one of the simpler Pilz devices! I bought mine as a new-but-obsolete version from eBay so the model number isn't very relevant (and I can't remember it off-hand).

As to where it fits in - a normal estop setup can only switch one circuit. Generally, you want to switch more than that (as per comments above) so you are going to need some kind of relay setup or somesuch to handle multiple independent circuits, but for emergency use it needs to be reliable which a single relay might not be. Add in the need for an explicit reset switch so if estop is hit, then things really stay off, and it gets a bit more complicated still. The Pilz "relay" packages all that functionality into one box. You might want to trip the relay with the limit switches as well as estop but that's a decision for the machine builder.