Patent Application
20090191295
The present invention relates to molding machines and, more particularly, to a molding machine having an efficient induction heating means as heating means for a portion which needs heating such as a heating cylinder or a mold, and a temperature control method thereof.
Generally, a band heater is used as a heating means of an injection molding machine or an extruding machine (hereinafter, these are collectively referred to as a molding machine). As shown in
A temperature sensor consisting of a thermocouple is installed in each zone, and a temperature is detected for each zone. A temperature detection signal from the temperature sensor is sent to a temperature control device 154. A display setter 155 can set up the temperature of each zone individually, and setting information on the temperature of each zone is sent to the temperature control device 154. The temperature control device 154 performs a control calculation based on the setting information from the display setter 155 and the temperature detection signal from each temperature sensor so that each zone is heated to the setting temperature by controlling an ON time of each switch means in accordance with the result of the calculation (for example, refer to Patent Document 1).
However, since the heating of the heating-cylinder by the band heaters 151-1 to 151-4 is heating according to heat conduction, there is a problem that a heating efficiency is bad. In addition, since a temperature control is performed by changing ON and OFF of the switch means, that is, changing a duty ratio of ON and OFF of a power supply, it is difficult to perform an accurate temperature control, and there is a problem in that an overshoot or an undershoot tends to occur.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 7-276458 (page 1, FIGS. 1 and 2)
It is a general object of the present invention to provide an improved and useful molding machine in which the above-mentioned problems are eliminated.
A more specific object of the present invention is to provide a molding machine which can perform an accurate control of a part to be heated.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a molding machine which can perform heating efficiently with respect to a heating part, which needs heating, such as a heating-cylinder or a mold.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a temperature control method of a molding machine which solves the above-mentioned problems.
According to the present invention, there is provided a molding machine having induction heating means for heating at least one part to be heated by induction heating, wherein said induction heating means includes an induction heating part provided in said part to be heated, and an electric power supply control part that controls an amount of electric power supplied to the induction heating part, and said electric power supply control part controls an electric power supplied to the induction heating part according to either one of a frequency control and an electric current control.
In the molding machine according to the present invention, it is preferable that said part to be heated corresponds to a plurality of locations of a heating cylinder, said electric power supply control part has a heating part controlling inverter to which an electric power is supplied from a direct current power source part, and the heating part controlling inverter performs said frequency control or electric current control. Said heating part controlling inverter preferably performs said frequency control within a range of several Hz to several tens KHz. Alternatively, said heating part controlling inverter preferably performs said electric current control using a fixed frequency within a range of several Hz to several tens KHz.
In the above-mentioned molding machine, the molding machine may have one or more motors, the motor may be configured to be supplied with an electric power through a motor controlling inverter from a direct current electric power source part for motor control, and said motor controlling electric power source part may be used commonly as said direct current electric power source part. Additionally, a switch may be provided to at least one of said heating part controlling inverter and said motor controlling inverter.
Additionally, in the above-mentioned molding machine, a voltage adjustment circuit may be provided on an input side of said heating part controlling inverter.
Additionally, according to the present invention, there is provided a temperature control method of a molding machine for heating at least one part to be heated in the molding machine by induction heating, wherein a temperature control of the part to be heated is performed by controlling an amount of electric power supplied for induction heating according to either one of a frequency control and an electric current control.
In the temperature control method of a molding machine according to the present invention, it is preferable that said frequency control is performed within a range of several Hz to several tens KHz. Alternatively, it is preferable that said electric current control is performed at a fixed frequency within a range of several Hz to several tens KHz.
According to the present invention, since the part to be heated such as a heating cylinder or a mold is heated directly, heating with good thermal efficiency is realizable.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, precise temperature control is realizable by controlling an electric power to the induction heating coil by the frequency control or the electric current control.
Moreover, according to one embodiment of the present invention, a cost reduction can be achieved by commonly using the direct current electric power source part for motor control as a power supply source to the induction heating coil. In this case, by providing a voltage adjustment circuit on an input side of the heating part controlling inverter, the output voltage of the heating part controlling inverter can be maintained constant even if the voltage fluctuates due to regeneration of the motor. Therefore, a voltage fluctuation does not affect the temperature control.
Furthermore, according to one embodiment of the present invention, in a case where the direct current electric power source part for motor control is commonly used as a power supply source to the induction heating coil by providing a switch means on an input side of at least the motor controlling inverter from among the heating part controlling inverter and the motor controlling inverter, a maintenance work for parts subsequent to the motor controlling inverter can be performed in a state where the heating of the part to be heated is maintained. This is important for satisfying a demand to maintain the heating of the heating cylinder so as to prevent deterioration of a melted resin in the heating cylinder when performing a maintenance work after performing an actual operation.
First, a description will be given, with reference to
The electric injection molding machine 10 shown in
The injection apparatus 50 is provided with a heating cylinder, and a hopper 52 is provided to the heating cylinder 51. A screw 53 is provided in the heating cylinder movably forward and backward and rotatably. A rear end of the screw 53 is rotatably supported by a support member 54. The support member 54 is attached with a metering motor 55 such as a servomotor as a drive part. Rotation of the metering motor 55 is transmitted to the screw 53 as a part to be driven through a timing belt 56 attached to an output shaft 61. A rotation detector 62 is connected to a rear end of the output shaft 61. A rotation detector 62 detects a rotational speed of the screw 53 by detecting a number of revolutions or an amount of rotation of the metering motor 55.
The injection apparatus 50 has a screw shaft 57 parallel to the screw 53. A rear end of the screw shaft 57 is connected to an injection motor 59 through a timing belt 58 attached to an output shaft 63 of the injection motor 59 such as a servomotor. Therefore, the screw shaft 57 can be rotated by the injection motor 59. A front end of the screw shaft 57 is in engagement with a nut 60 fixed to the support member 54. When rotating the screw shaft 57 through the timing belt 58 by driving the injection motor 59, the support member 54 becomes movable forward and backward, and, as a result, the screw 53 as a part to be driven can be moved forward and backward. A position detector 64 is connected to a rear end of an output shaft 63 of the injection motor 59. The position detector 64 detects a position of the screw 53, which indicates a drive state of the screw 53, by detecting a number of revolutions or an amount of rotation of the injection motor 59.
The mold clamping apparatus 70 comprises a movable platen 72 to which a movable mold 71 is attached and a stationary platen 74 to which a stationary mold 73 is attached. The movable platen 72 and the stationary platen 74 are coupled to each other by tie bars 75. The movable platen 72 is slidable along the tie bars 75. Additionally, the mold clamping apparatus 70 has a toggle mechanism 77 of which one end coupled to the movable platen 72 and the other end coupled with the toggle support 76. A ball screw shaft 79 is rotatably supported in the central portion of the toggle support 76. A nut 81 formed in a crosshead 80, which is provided in a toggle mechanism 77, is in engagement with the ball screw shaft 79. Moreover, a rear end of the ball screw shaft 79 is provided with a pulley 82, and a timing belt is provided between the output axis 83 of a mold clamping motor 78 such as a servo motor and the pulley 82.
In the mold clamping apparatus 70, when the mold clamping motor 78 as a drive part is driven, rotation of the mold clamping motor 78 is transmitted to the ball screw shaft 79 through the timing belt 84. Then, it is converted from a rotational movement to a linear movement by the ball screw shaft 79 and the nut 81, which results in operation of the toggle mechanism. According to the operation of the toggle mechanism 77, the movable platen 72 moves along the tie bars 75, and mold closing and mold clamping are carried out. A position detector 85 is connected to a rear end of an output shaft 83 of the mold clamping motor 78. The position detector 85 detects a position of the crosshead 80, which moves with rotation of the ball screw shaft 79, a position of the movable platen 72, which is coupled to the crosshead 80 by the toggle mechanism 77, by detecting a number of revolutions or an amount of rotation of the mold clamping motor 78.
Next, a description will be given, with reference to
The injection apparatus 50 has the heating cylinder 51 and the screw 53, which is rotatable and movable forward and backward in the heating cylinder 51 as mentioned above. An injection nozzle 95 formed with a nozzle opening 96 is provided to an extreme end of the heating cylinder 51. A resin supply opening 86 is formed at predetermined position of the heating cylinder 51. A hopper 52 is connected to the resin supply opening 86 through a connection cylinder 87 so that resin pellets 88 in the hopper 52 are supplied inside the heating cylinder 51 through the connection cylinder 87 and the resin supply opening 86. Moreover, induction heating coils 112-1 to 112-4 are attached to the outer circumference of the heating cylinder 51. The resin pellets 88 can be heated and melted within the heating cylinder 51 by supplying electric current to the induction heating coils 112-1 to 112-4.
The screw 53 comprises a flight part 92 and a screw head 97 and a seal part 98 provided on a front end of the flight part 92. The flight part 92 has a flight 93 spirally formed on an outer circumferential surface of the body of the screw 53, and a spiral groove 94 is formed by the flight 93. Moreover, a feed zone S1 in which the resin pellets 88 fallen from the hopper 52 are supplied and fed forward, a compression zone S2 in which the supplied resin pellets 88 are melted while being compressed, and metering zone S3 in which the melted resin is metered by a fixed amount are formed in the flight part 92 in that order from the rear to the front thereof.
When the screw 53 is rotated in a normal direction at the time of a metering process, the resin pellets 88 are supplied to the feed zone S1 through the resin supply opening 86, and are moved forward (moved leftward in the figure) in the groove 94. In connection with that, the screw 53 is caused to be moved backward (moved rightward in the figure) so that the resin is accumulated in front of the screw head 97. It should be noted that the resin in the groove 94 is in the form of the pellet in the feed zone S1, and in a half-melted state in the compression zone S2, and is turned into a liquid state in the metering zone S3 by being completely melted. Then, when the screw 53 is moved forward in an injection process, the liquid state resin accumulated in front of the screw head 97 is injected from the injection nozzle 95, and is filled in a cavity space of the stationary mold 73 of the mold clamping apparatus 70.
Next, a description will be given, with reference to
In
Reasons for taking the above-mentioned circuit structure are as follows. Generally, an electric energy P required for induction heating is considered to be in proportion to I2·F2 (where, I is an electric current to be supplied, and f is a frequency of the electric current). This means that an amount of heat generated in a part to be heated by the induction heating coil IC20 is controllable by an electric current I or a frequency f. In other words, it means that a temperature control of a part to be heated can be performed by an electric current I or a frequency f.
From the above-mentioned view point, in the circuit shown in
Next, a description will be given, with reference to
In
The detection temperature signals from the temperature sensors 113-1 to 113-4 and the temperature sensor 20-1 are fed back to a temperature controller 30. The temperature controller 30 is connected to a molding machine controller 101. A display setting unit 102 is connected to the molding machine controller 101. Setting temperatures of the zones 111-1 to 111-4 can be set individually to the display setting unit 102. The molding machine controller 101 provides the temperature setting value signals, which indicate the setting temperatures of the zones set to the display setting unit 102, to the temperature controller 30.
Heating part controlling inverters (HCI) 114-1, 114-2, 114-3 and 114-4, which have the above-mentioned frequency control function or current control function, are connected to the induction heating coils 112-1, 112-2, 112-3 and 112-4, respectively, and individually frequency-controlled electric power is supplied thereto.
The temperature controller 30 compares the temperature detection signals of the zones 111-1 to 111-4 from the temperature sensors 113-1 to 113-4 with the corresponding temperature setting value signals, and outputs control signals for performing temperature control of the zones 111-1 to 111-4 to the respective heating part controlling inverters 114-1 to 114-4 from the output control part 31 based on the result of the comparison. It should be noted that the temperature detection signals from the temperature sensors 113-1 to 113-4 are sent also to the display setting unit 102 via the molding machine controller 101. The display setting unit 102 displays the setting temperature and detection temperature of each of the zones 111-1 to 111-4.
By the way, in order to supply electric power to the induction heating coils 112-1 to 112-4, it is necessary to supply electric power to the heating part controlling inverters 114-1 to 114-4 from the direct current power source part. In the present embodiment, the direct current power source circuit 40 for supplying electric power to various motors provided in the injection molding machine is used also as the above-mentioned direct current power source part.
In the present embodiment, the direct current power source circuit 40 includes a rectification circuit 41, which is a diode bridge circuit for rectifying a three-phase alternating current from a three-phase alternating current power source PS, a starter circuit 42, which is connected to an output side of the rectification circuit 41 and having a switch S1 and a resistor R1 connected in parallel, and a smoothing capacitor C1. The smoothing capacitor C1 is provided to smooth a voltage applied to each of the heating part controlling inverters 114-1 to 114-4 and inverters IV1-IV4 mentioned below from a DC link.
As typical examples of motors provided in the injection molding machine, an ejector motor M1, a mold opening and closing motor M2, a metering motor M3 and an injection motor M4 are shown here. Electric power for drive is supplied to each of the motors M1 to M4 through motor control inverters (MCIs) IV1 to IV4. The motor control inverters IV1 to IV4 are connected to the output of the direct current power source circuit 40 in parallel. The heating part controlling inverters 114-1 to 114-4 are also connected to the output of the direct current power source circuit 40 in parallel. The smoothing capacitor C2 is connected on an input side of each of the motor controlling inverters IV1 to IV4 in parallel. The smoothing capacitors C2 are provided for smoothing a voltage applied to each of the motor controlling inverters IV1 to IV4. Moreover, the smoothing capacitors C2 play a roll of reducing an impedance of the DC link when viewed from each of the motor control inverters IV1 to IV4.
It should be noted that a feedback control system for controlling based on a difference between sensors provided to portions to be controlled and setting values is constituted for each of the motors M1 to M4 so that the control is performed by the motor controlling inverters IV1 to IV4 being provided with instruction values. A description of the structure of the control system is omitted.
According to the above-mentioned structure, with respect to the heating part controlling inverter 114-1 for example, a control signal based on a result of comparison between detected temperature according to temperature detection signal from the temperature sensor 112-1 and the setting temperature set to the zone 111-1 in the temperature controller 30 is provided to the heating part controlling inverter 114-1. The heating part controlling inverter 114-1 performs the temperature control of the zone 111-1 by adjusting the frequency of the electric current to be supplied to the induction heating coil 112-1 in accordance with the control signal. The same control operation is performed on other heating part controlling inverters 114-2 to 114-4.
As mentioned above, since the heating cylinder 51 is directly heated by induction heating, a thermal efficiency is improved as compared to heating by heat conduction of a band heater. Then, according to the frequency control, since the electric power supplied to the induction heating coil 112-1 can be continuously changed, a precise temperature control can be realized. Additionally, since the direct current power source circuit 40 for driving motors is used as the electric power source for heating the heating cylinder 51, a cost reduction can be attempted.
The heating part controlling inverter 114-1 includes a transistor Tr14 to which a diode D14 is connected in parallel, an output capacitor C14, and a control circuit 114-11 connected to a base of the transistor Tr14. The control circuit 114-11 performs a frequency control by causing the transistor Tr14 to perform a switching operation in response to the control signal output from the output control part 31 in accordance with a previously acquired correlation between a frequency and an amount of heat supplied to the heating cylinder 51. Also in a case of the current control, the transistor Tr14 is cause to perform a switching operation in response to the control signal output from the output control part 31 in accordance with a previously acquired correlation between an electric current and an amount of heat supplied to the heating cylinder 51 so as to control the electric current flowing in the induction heating coils 112-1 to 112-4. Other heating part controlling inverters 114-2 to 114-4 have the same structure.
Using the voltage-up/voltage-down circuits 45-1 to 45-4 is based on the following reason. That is, although the direct current power source circuit 40 for driving motors is used commonly as the direct current power source part for induction heating in the above-mentioned embodiment, there may be a case where a voltage for induction heating and a voltage for driving motors are different from each other. In such a case, the voltage-up/voltage-down circuits 45-1 to 45-4 adjust and output the voltage for driving motors to match with the voltage for induction heating. Moreover, the input voltages of the inverters IV1 to IV4 may temporarily increase due to a regenerative operation of motors or temporarily decrease due to overloading.
In either of the cases of
There is a case where a maintenance work is performed on an injection molding machine without turning off a main power after an actual operation is ended. For example, when performing a maintenance work of an ejector mechanism, there is a demand for turning off a power of only an ejector motor M1. After ending an actual operation, a melted resin remains in the heating cylinder 51, and in a case where the main power is turned off, a power to the induction heating coils 112-1 to 112-4 are all turned off, and, thereby, the resin in heating cylinder 51 may deteriorate. Thus, when performing a maintenance work of one or more motors or surrounding parts in the molding machine, the switch S11 of only the corresponding motor controlling inverter is turned off and the switch S22 is turned on. On the other hand, when a melted resin does not remain in the heating cylinder 51, both the switch S11 and the switch S22 are turned off. It should be noted that the above-mentioned switches may be provided at least one of the motor controlling inverter and the heating part controlling inverter, and, preferably, provided only on the heating part controlling inverter side.
Although the voltage-up/voltage-down circuits 45-1 to 45-4 are separately provided to the heating part controlling inverters 114-1 to 114-4, respectively, in the above-mentioned embodiment, only one voltage-up/voltage-down circuits 45 having a large capacity may be provided for all of the heating part controlling inverters 114-1 to 114-4. Such a structure of the voltage-up/voltage-down circuit 45 is the same as the above-mentioned voltage-up/voltage-down circuits 45-1 to 45-4, and a description thereof will be omitted.
The present invention is not limited to the specifically disclosed embodiments, and various variations and modification may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
The present invention is applicable not only to an injection molding machine but an extrusion molding machine. A part to be heated, which is an object to be heated, is not only the heating cylinder but also applicable to, for example, a mold that requires heating.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004-002119 | Jan 2004 | JP | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/JP04/19412 | 12/24/2004 | WO | 00 | 7/6/2006 |
