This invention relates generally to the use and control of grinding machines for producing machined parts.
It has been observed that the pivot point location of grinder machine tool heads can vary when maintenance is performed on a machine spindle. The pivot point is offset from the spindle centerline. This offset is unknown and can cause all part programs for a particular machine to become obsolete as the relationship between the pivot point and the machine home position is different. As a result, each grinding program has to be re-programmed. In addition, programs cannot be transferred to other machines, since the offset variation between machines is also different and unknown.
In at least one known system, any change in the spindle offset or movement of a program to a different machine requires a programmer to manually place a machine in a position of each of the operations needed to simulate a production cut. The five axis coordinates of the machine's grinding are then manually recorded and adjustments are manually made to a program to compensate for the new relationship between the pivot point of the spindle and the home position of the grinding machine. The need for such adjustments makes it difficult or impossible to use computer numerical control (CNC) programs for grinding a part on other grinders within a shop having a plurality of grinders without personal attention being given to adjusting the program on each of the grinders.
Thus, some configurations of the present invention provide a method for calibrating a CNC apparatus for controlling a machine tool. The CNC apparatus has a memory configured to compensate for offsets in a pivot point. The machine tool has a head, a pivot point, a spindle, a table, and at least four axes including an X-axis, a Y-axis, a Z-axis, and a C-axis. The method includes placing an artifact of known height on the table, placing a plug having a known diameter on the spindle and touching the plug to the artifact in a plurality of orientations of the plug and in a plurality of locations of the plug and the artifact to determine uncalibrated X and Y pivot point locations at a plurality of orientations of the spindle. The method utilizes the uncalibrated X and Y pivot point locations to determine and store values in the memory of the CNC apparatus to compensate for offsets in the pivot point.
Some configurations of the present invention provide a computer-readable medium having recorded thereon machine readable instructions. The instructions are configured to instruct a computer to prompt a user to manually input uncalibrated X and Y pivot point locations at a plurality of orientations of a spindle of a computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine tool having a head, a pivot point, a spindle, a table, and at least four axes including an X-axis, a Y-axis, a Z-axis, and a C-axis. Also, the instructions are configured to instruct the computer to utilize the uncalibrated X and Y pivot point locations to determine and display values of compensation data for entry in a memory of a CNC apparatus, wherein the compensation data is determined to compensate for offsets in a pivot point of the machine tool.
Also, some configurations of the present invention provide a computer numerical control (CNC) apparatus for a machine tool having a head, a pivot point, a spindle, a table, and at least four axes including an X-axis, a Y-axis, a Z-axis, and a C-axis. The CNC apparatus is configured to prompt a user to place a plug on a spindle of the machine tool and an artifact on a table, and to prompt a user to orient the plug in a plurality of orientations and to touch the plug to the artifact in a plurality of locations. The CNC apparatus is further configured to determine a plurality of uncalibrated X and Y pivot point locations from during the touching, and to utilize the uncalibrated X and Y pivot point locations to determine and display values of compensation data to enter values in a memory of the CNC apparatus, wherein the compensation data is determined to compensate for offsets in a pivot point of the machine tool.
It will thus be appreciated that configurations of the present invention facilitate the use of a single program on a plurality of like machine tools that may be in use in a machine shop to produce identically shaped and dimensioned parts.
In some configurations, technical effects of the present invention include the calibration of offsets of certain machine tools used in conjunction with computer numerical control (CNC) apparatus. Referring to the schematic representation of
Computer numerical control apparatus 20 includes a memory 24. Memory 24 is also used to store one or more CNC programs for grinding or machining the part on table 16 as well as a memory that is used to store values that compensate for pivot point 12 offsets. CNC apparatus 20 also includes a processor 26 used to interpret instructions stored in memory 24 and received via an input device or devices 28 in some configurations. Input device(s) may include a keyboard, keypad and/or mouse for human input and/or a media reading device, such as a floppy disk drive, a CD-ROM drive, a DVD-ROM drive, or a network port. These and many input devices 28 and memory devices 24 are known in the art, so that a selection of one or more types of each and their electrical configurations can be left as a design choice by one of ordinary skill in the art of computer design. CNC 20 in some configurations also includes a display 30, such as an LCD or CRT display (a printer is also suitable in many configurations), and an output port 32 that communicates commands to input port 18 of machine tool 10. The present invention does not require CNC 20 and machine tool 10 to be physically separate from one another. Thus, the functions of both CNC 20 and machine tool 10 may be present in one unit, and in one such configuration, output port(s) 32 and input port 18 are replaced by a direct electrical connection between processor 26 and axis controls 22. Also, in various configurations, one or more of output port(s) 32 and/or some or all of memory 24 may be incorporated on a single chip or circuit board with processor 26.
In some configurations of the present invention, values displayed on display 30 of CNC 20 are input to a computer 34 having its own display 36 and running a spreadsheet described below. The spreadsheet program is supplied on one or more machine readable media (not shown in
In some configurations and referring to
In some configurations and referring to the sequence of
In some configurations, a cylindrical plug 40 is attached on spindle 14 at the end of elbow 38, which itself is a 90 degree elbow. Plug 40 is cylindrical to ensure that wherever it is touched along its edge 42, the distance from the touched point to spindle 14 is the same. A noncylindrical plug could be used, although measurements of the distance from touching points along its edge and spindle 14 would have to be made and adjustments would have to be made in the equations disclosed below to take these distances into account. As spindle 14 is rotated in the C direction about pivot point 12, the precise location of plug 40 is not known to CNC 20 because the X and Y offsets of pivot point 12 (as shown in
To find the center or pivot point 12, a plug 40 (which can be, but need not be a tool, such as a grinding wheel or cutter) of a known diameter is placed on spindle 14, as shown in
In some configurations and referring to
Referring to
Next, and referring to
Next, and referring to
Artifact 42 remains stationary in all of the steps shown in
In some configurations, a technical effect of the present invention is achieved, in part, by a user or technician entering data into cells of a spreadsheet and transferring results to CNC apparatus 20. Thus, in some configurations and referring to
The spreadsheet display shown in
Areas of the spreadsheet such as cells 53, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62 and 64 are highlighed (such as by utilizing a background color) in some configurations to indicate where a user or technician is to enter numbers. The values entered in cells 56, 58, 60, 62, and 64 in
It is not actually required that a spindle centerline to pivot point and/or a gage-line to pivot point distance be displayed as part of the spreadsheet. However, but it is helpful for configurations of the present invention to do so to facilitate discovery of data entry or other procedural errors.
The functions used to determine the spindle centerline to pivot point dimension and the gage line to pivot point dimension in some configurations of the present invention are:
SCLPP=((X2−X5+(BD/2))−(Y3−Y4+(BD/2)))/2
GLPP=((X2−X5+(BD/2))+(Y3−Y4+(BD/2)))/2−(Y3−JBH),
where:
SCLPP=spindle centerline to pivot point dimension;
BD=a diameter of the plug on the spindle;
X2=the value of X offset read from the control output (e.g., CNC 20 display 30) when touching a side 44 of unrotated plug 40 to a side 46 of artifact 42;
X5=the value of X offset read from the control output when touching a bottom 50 of plug 40 rotated 90 degrees to side 46 of artifact 42;
Y3=the value of Y offset read from the control output when touching the bottom 50 of unrotated plug 40 to the top 52 of artifact 42;
Y4=the value of Y offset read from the control output when touching the side 44 of plug 40 rotated 90 degrees to the top 52 of artifact 42;
GLPP=the gage line to pivot point dimension; and
JBH=JO block height (i.e., the height of artifact 42).
(The numbering used in the notation X2, X5, Y3, and Y4 does not match the sequential numbers in the first column of the control readings block in
The order in which the are steps performed to obtain control outputs X2, X5, Y3, and Y4 is not necessarily the order implied by the numbers used with the control output variables, as long as all of these variables are obtained. However, in some cases it may be faster and more efficient to perform the steps in the order described herein because only one rotation step is required for performing the steps in this order. Additionally, some commonality exists between the equations from which SCLPP and GLPP are determined. Thus, computational efficiencies may be achieved in some configurations by determining (X2−X5+(BD/2)) and (Y3−Y4+(BD/2)) first, for example, and using these results in the calculations for SCLPP and GLPP rather than performing the calculations for SCLPP and GLPP directly as indicated in the equations. One of ordinary skill in the art will be able to achieve efficiencies such as this upon developing an understanding of the present invention.
Configurations of the present invention are not dependent upon any particular height of artifact 42 or any particular diameter of plug 40, as long as they are known and do not change during the procedure. Thus, the dimensions of both plug 40 and artifact 42 may be selected for the convenience of the user or technician. In some configurations, plug 40 and artifact 42 dimensions are preselected. By preselecting these dimensions, and by providing a plug 40 and an artifact 42 in accordance with these dimensions, the values of these dimensions can be hard-coded into the spreadsheet or other offset calculation program. This hardcoding relieves the user or technician from having to measure and/or enter these dimensions each time the procedure is repeated for any given machine tool 10 or any set of machine tools.
Configurations of the present invention can be used not only with grinding machines as machine tools 10, but for any other type of computer numeric controlled equipment in which a spindle is offset from a pivot point, such as some milling machines.
Configurations of the present invention are generally applicable to machine tools that utilize CNC (computer numeric control) apparatus 20, and that have at least four axes (namely, X, Y, Z, and C axes). The presence of a B axis is not required to practice the present invention, nor does it affect the location of the pivot point.
In some configurations, the spreadsheet file (“worksheet”) or other program for calculating offset-compensating control register values is provided in machine readable form (such as on one or more floppy diskettes, CD-ROMs, CD-RWs, DVDs, or other medium or any combination of media, including electronic signals communicated via a wired or wireless network). The worksheet is read by a computer running a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel, although the selection of a particular spreadsheet program (or to implement the pivot point program differently, for example, as a standalone, separately executable program) can be left as a design choice to one of ordinary skill in the art. In some configurations, results 70, 72 are transferred to CNC apparatus 20 manually in some configurations, but in other configurations, the results are automatically transferred via a network or other communications channel (not shown in the Figures).
As noted above, some configurations of the present invention utilize a stand-alone program provided in machine readable form. Also, some configurations of the present invention do not require a computer having a separate operating system, but either contain instructions for booting and running the program directly without the benefit of an operating system or are executed on a special-purpose computer. For example, in some configurations, the computing device is a special purpose device in which the machine readable medium is a read-only memory (or programmable read-only memory) containing instructions for the computing device to accept the control outputs obtained by the technical and determine and display the offset values and/or register values to the technician or communicate them directly to CNC apparatus 20. In still other configurations, the instructions are provided in a memory 24 of CNC apparatus 20 itself, executed in a processor 26 of CNC apparatus 20, and the control registers are automatically set by the program. There is no need to display offset or control register values to the technician in some of these configurations, although their display can be made an option.
It will thus be appreciated that configurations of the present invention facilitate the calibration of computer numerically controlled machine tools. Such calibration advantageously permits a single CNC program to be used for a plurality of like machine tools to produce identically shaped and dimensioned parts without individual adjust of every such program to specifically accommodate the varying offsets of every machine tool.
While the invention has been described in terms of various specific embodiments, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention can be practiced with modification within the spirit and scope of the claims.
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