This non-provisional application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(a) on Patent Application No(s). 105138515 filed in Taiwan on Nov. 23, 2016, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
The disclosure relates in general to an inspection system and an inspection method, and more particularly an inspection system for detecting cutting tools stored in a storage and an inspection method for the inspection system.
Cutting tools are important in the metal machining industry. During machining, extreme interactions between the cutting tool and a workpiece may cause wear (e.g. flank wear or crater wear) to the cutting tool. In order to achieve high machining quality, it is necessary to pre-check the cutting tool before machining begins. For example, checking the condition of the cutting edge, checking the width/length of the flank and crater wear, and checking if the cutting tool is held in a desired position. To ensure the manufacturing yield and product quality and to fully utilize the cutting tool lifespan, timely changing of the cutting tool, according to the wear inspection, is a promising solution.
The disclosure provides an inspection system for detecting cutting tools stored in a storage, and also provides an inspection method for the inspection system.
One embodiment of the disclosure provides an inspection system. The inspection system is adaptive to a storage, and the storage has a plurality of slots for disposing one or more cutting tools. The inspection system includes an image acquisition device and an inspection control device. The image acquisition device is disposed coaxially with one of the slots and movable along a central axis of the slot. The inspection control device is used to control the image acquisition device in order to obtain an image of an end face of a cutting tool disposed in the slot which is disposed coaxially with the image acquisition device. The image of the end face has a wearing area. The wearing area has a long reference line and a short reference line orthogonal to each other. When the maximum width of a projection of the wearing area projecting on the short reference line exceeds a threshold value, an alerting signal for changing cutting tool is delivered.
One embodiment of the disclosure provides an inspection method for an inspection system. The inspection method includes the steps of: obtaining an image of an end face of a cutting tool stored in a storage by an image acquisition device; defining a wearing area of the image of the end face and obtaining the maximum width of the wearing area by analyzing the image of the end face; and determining whether a value of the maximum width exceeds a threshold value. If the threshold value is determined to have been exceeded, delivering an alerting signal for changing cutting tool.
The above and other aspects of the disclosure will become better understood with regard to the following detailed description of the preferred but non-limiting embodiment(s). The following description is made with reference to the accompanying drawings.
In the following detailed description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the disclosed embodiments. It will be apparent, however, that one or more embodiments may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are schematically shown in order to simplify the drawing.
A number of embodiments are disclosed below with accompanying drawings for elaborating the disclosure. However, the embodiments are for exemplary and explanatory descriptions only, not intent to limit the scope of the disclosure.
Please see
The inspection system 10 includes a support frame 100, a movable platform 200, an image acquisition device 300, an inspection control device 400, and a user interface device 500.
The support frame 100 is fixed to the storage 20. The movable platform 200 is movably disposed on the support frame 100. The image acquisition device 300 is fixed to the movable platform 200 and disposed coaxially with one of the slots 22. As shown in
The inspection control device 400 is used to control the image acquisition device 300 in order to obtain an image of an end face 32 of the cutting tool 30 disposed in the slot 22 which is disposed coaxially with the image acquisition device 300. The image of the end face 32 has a wearing area Q, as shown in
The user interface device 500 is, for example, a tablet PC, a notebook, a desktop computer, or a handheld electronic device. The user Interface device 500 can perform an alerting light for changing cutting tool. The alerting light will be performed while delivering the alerting signal. In addition, in this or some other embodiments, the user interface device 500 comprises an input text cell for receiving the threshold value. In another embodiment, the user interface device 500 further comprises an input text cell for receiving tool identification number and an input text cell for receiving length value. The inspection control device 400 is able to adjust the distance between the image acquisition device 300 and the slot 22 according to the length value.
Then, please refer to
The identification number and the length value of the cutting tool 30 in the storage 20 will be received by the inspection control device 400. Then, how to detect the cutting tool 30 in the inspection system 10 will be described in the following paragraphs.
As shown in
Then, in step S200, the distance D1 between the image acquisition device 300 and the end face 32 of the cutting tool 30 is adjusted according to the tool length compensation value. In detail, the distance D1 can be adjusted to equal to the focal length of the image acquisition device 300 according to the tool length compensation value for ensuring the image quality.
Then, in step S300, the image of the end face 32 of the cutting tool 30 (as shown in
Then, in step S400, define a wearing area (as shown in
Then, in step S500, determine whether the value of the maximum width Wmax exceeds a threshold value. If the threshold value is determined to have been exceeded, then to step S510, delivering an alerting signal for changing the cutting tool 30. If the threshold value is determined to not have been exceeded, then to step S520, building a wear information of the cutting tool 30. The wear information can be, for example, “minor damage”, “moderate damage”, or “acceptable” in accordance with the condition of the wearing area of the end face 32 of the cutting tool 30. However, it is noted that the step S 520 is optional, and the disclosure is not limited thereto. For example, in some other embodiments, the inspection method may be completed without building the wear information of the cutting tool.
In the step S400, the process of analyzing the image of the end face 32 includes steps S410-S470.
In step S410, a first processed image (as shown in
In step S420, a second processed image (as shown in
In step S430, the wearing area (as shown in
In step S440, a coordinate of a center point C of the wearing area (as shown in
In step S450, the center point C of the wearing area is taken as the origin of coordinate.
In step S460, as shown in
In step 470, as shown in
Usually, the cutting tools in the storage 20 may have different wear conditions. Therefore, different wear information among the cutting tools can be obtained by the aforementioned inspection method. As step S600 shown in
According to the inspection system and the inspection method as described above, the alerting signal for changing cutting tool can be timely delivered when the maximum width of the projection of the wearing area projecting on the short reference line exceeds the threshold value.
In addition, the inspection method are performed on the cutting tools which are stored in the storage, so the machining process will not be interrupted, which is beneficial to improve machining efficiency.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the disclosed embodiments. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with a true scope of the disclosure being indicated by the following claims and their equivalents.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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105138515 | Nov 2016 | TW | national |