What is the difference between a safety relay and a normal relay?

The main differences between safety relays and ordinary relays are their design purpose, internal structure and safety functions:

🔒 Safety relays

· Designed for safety functions to protect personal safety and machine equipment.

· With redundant circuits and self-test functions to prevent single-point failure.

· Meet international safety standards (such as ISO 13849-1, IEC 61508, IEC 60204-1, etc.).

· Often used in conjunction with safety equipment (such as safety light curtains, safety doors, safety carpets, etc.).

· With force-guided contacts to ensure that faults can be detected.

⚙️ Ordinary relays

· Used for switch control of general control circuits.

· No redundancy or self-test functions.

· Does not meet specific functional safety standards.

· Once an internal fault occurs, it may not be possible to detect or maintain a safe state.

✅ Summary:

Safety relays are more suitable for situations involving personnel safety, while ordinary relays are only suitable for ordinary control needs. When choosing, you should decide whether to use a safety relay based on the safety level requirements.