The invention resides in a tool pivoting unit for the exchangeable installation in an exchange adapter of a machine tool carriage—including a pivot head which is supported in a housing and in which a rotatable tool holder is arranged wherein the pivot head is pivotable in the housing by at least 100 angular degrees about a pivot axis which is oriented transverse to the travel direction of the machine tool carriage.
DE 10 2004 062 138 133 discloses such an adjustable tool pivot unit. The tool pivot unit itself is supported on the machine carriage of a machine tool so as to be pivotable about a C-axis shaft. The housing of the tool pivot unit includes a pivot head which is pivotable about an A-axis shaft. Both shafts are driven by a single servomotor. The rotational movement of the servomotor is used via an electrically shiftable drive either for pivoting the pivot head or for the rotational movement of the machine tool pivot unit about the C-axis.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a tool pivot unit wherein at least one pivotable unit part is pivotable safely and in a simple manner without its own dedicated drive.
In accordance with the present invention, the pivot head is movable with respect to the housing by means of a drive unit which converts a linear movement into a rotational pivot head movement. The drive unit includes a linearly moveable carriage. For an adjustment of the linear carriage, the linear carriage abuts at least one stop while the housing is moved relative to this stop by means of the tool carriage and/or the machine tool table. Alternatively, the linear carriage abuts for an adjustment at least one stop which is movable by a motor so as to be linearly adjusted thereby with respect to the stationary fixed housing.
On the other hand, with two separate pivot movements of the tool pivot unit—the housing as well as the pivot head, each is movable about its pivot axis by means of a drive. The respective drive includes a linear carriage coupled to a gear wheel or a gear segment. For adjustment, the respective linear carriage comes into contact with at least one stop while the housing is moved relative to this stop by the machine tool carriage and/or the machine tool table.
The present invention provides for a tool pivot unit, whose rotatable tool holder can be pivoted with respect to the supporting machine tool carriage about one or two pivot axes without the tool pivot unit having its own drive for executing those pivot movements. As drive for this pivot movement the machine carriages carrying the tool pivot unit are used. To this end, the respective tool pivot unit is moved for example against a stop or indexing bolt carrier fixed to the machine table in order to displace, after a first contact, for example drive parts projecting from the tool pivot unit such as a linear carriage, by a linear movement of the tool pivot unit with respect to the tool pivot unit. The respective displacement of the linear carriage is converted in the interior of the tool pivot unit into a corresponding pivot movement which is transmitted to the tool holder.
The invention will become more readily apparent from the following description of exemplary embodiments of the invention with reference to the accompanying drawings.
It is shown in:
The machine carriage 2 of the machine tool 1 includes an exchangeable series-connected pivot unit 110. It is coupled to the machine carriage 2 at the lower front face thereof. This front face is a part of the exchange adapter 4. From this front face, an operating spindle 5 projects for example in a vertical direction.
The operating spindle 5 is surrounded by a flange 111 on which a servo motor 120 is mounted and by which a rotatable disc 116 is supported. The rotatable disc 116 is in the form of a pot in which at least one anti-friction bearing 114 is mounted by way of its outer bearing ring using for example a shaft unit 115. To permit tightening the shaft unit 115 longitudinal slots are provided in the flange 111 which slots however are not shown in the drawings.
The inner ring of the antifriction bearing 114 is arranged on the flange 111, without play, for example by means of a shaft nut 118.
The centerline of the rotatable disc 116 extends congruent with the center line of the operating shaft 5. In the bottom wall of the rotatable disc 116 there is an off-center indexing bore 119. The outer wall of the rotatable disc 116 is provided with a toothed belt gear structure 117.
The servomotor 120 which is disposed at an outer end of the flange 111 includes a drive output shaft 121.
The servomotor 120 which is disposed at the outer end of the flange 111 has a drive output shaft 121 on which a toothed belt gear wheel 122 is firmly supported. The toothed belt gear wheel 122 is operatively connected to the tooth belt gear structure via a toothed belt 123. The belt drive is covered from below by a housing cover 112.
Below the series-connected pivot unit 110, there is a tool pivot unit 10. It includes a unit shaft 13 which is coupled to the operating shaft 5 of the machine tool 1. The housing 11 is provided with for example an upwardly projecting rigid indexing pin 12 which, after the tool pivot unit 10 has been coupled to the series-connected pivot unit 110, extends into the indexing bore 119 to prevent rotation of the flange 111. With the aid of the servomotor 120 whose rotational movement is monitored for example by a tachogenerator, the tool pivot unit 10 can be pivoted by the rotatable disc 116 with respect to the machine tool carriage 2 about the C-axis 19 by almost any desired angle.
The housing 11 of the tool pivot unit 10 supports in its lower area a pivot head 50 on which a tool holder 70, which is driven by the unit shaft 13, is supported. The pivot axis of the pivot head 50 is in this case the A-axis 52.
For driving the tool holder 70, the housing 11 includes a gear drive 20, see
During the operation of the tool pivot unit 10, that is during drilling, cutting or sawing etc., the pivot head 50 is locked in the housing. To this end, the housing 1 includes a clamping arrangement 60, see
In the shown exemplary embodiment, the brake shoe 64 abuts the pivot shaft 51 radially. The brake shoe 64 is provided with a rod 63 on which several for example reciprocally arranged plate openings 65 are stacked. The plate springs 65 are supported on an intermediate housing wall 18. The intermediate housing wall 18 includes a bore through which the rod 63 extends into a cylinder chamber 61. There, the rod 63 is, like a piston rod, connected to a piston 62. For releasing the brake shoe 64, pressurized air is applied to the piston rod side of the piston 62 via a compressed air line 66. As a result, the brake shoe 64 is lifted off the pivot shaft 51 at the pivot head against the force of the plate springs 65.
In order to make it possible in the exemplary embodiments to pivot the pivot head 50 for example with the operating shaft 5 at a standstill, in accordance with
Between the spur gear 34 and the gear rack 31 at least two gears mounted on a shaft may be interposed for transmitting the rack movement at increased or reduced speed.
The gear rack 31 extends parallel to the centerline 19. Attached thereto is a bracket 32, which projects sidewardly from the housing 11 and is provided at its free end with a downwardly facing, for example, spherically arched carriage IS stop 33. At the upper end of the gear rack, for example, a spiral compression spring 38 is disposed which is supported on the housing 11. Alternatively, the gear rack 31 may be pulled downwardly by a tension spring. It would also be possible to provide a torsion spring which is engaged by the housing and which biases the gear 34 for rotation in clockwise direction.
The geared length of the rack 31 is tuned to the maximum pivot angle 56 of the pivot head 50. The roll-off length corresponds to the length of the arc corresponding to the pivot angle 56.
In accordance with
In order to permit pivoting the pivot head 50 during an off period, the clamping arrangement 60 is in the housing 11 subjected to pressurized air, see
In a subsequent step, the magnet holder 80 and the tool pivot unit 10 are positioned with respect to each other in such a way that the upper front face 84 of the stop rod 83 is contacted by the carriage stop 33. The bracket 32 is then disposed in its lowest position. The pivot head 50 is now in the position 59.
Now the machine carriage 2 and the machine table 8 are moved toward one another in a CNC-controlled manner. For each selectable angular position of the pivot head 50, there is a respective stroke position of the machine carriage 2 and/or the machine table 8.
When the selected angular position has been reached the clamping arrangement 60 is depressurized, see
In order to increase the repetition accuracy of the pivot movement of the pivot head 50, the gear 34 may be in engagement at the same time with two gear racks 31 which are slidingly supported next to each other. The two gear racks 31 are then tensioned elastically relative to each other in the longitudinal direction in order to eliminate any tooth backlash. Alternatively, also two gears 34 which are rotationally tensioned relative to each other may be in engagement with a gear rack 31.
For minimizing the drive forces required for the gear rack adjustment the pivot head 50 may be provided at the side remote from the tool holder 70 with a counterweight.
In another variant, the magnetic holder 80 includes a linear drive with a measuring system having a pin which is axially adjustment under the control of the machine control unit. The pin is provided to displace the carriage 31 of the tool pivot unit 10 by changing the position of the carriage stop 33. In a particular embodiment of this variant instead of the linear drive a rotating servomotor with a tachogenerator may be used. The output shaft of the servomotor is then coupled in a special coupling cavity to a freely accessible front side of the pivot head shaft 51 of the pivot head 50 without play in order to pivot the latter as desired.
The roller arc drive 40 consists of a linear carriage 41, for example, three metal strips 131, 132, 133 and a roller arc shaft 43, see
The center tape 131 is twice as wide as one of the outer tapes 132, 133. Generally a roller arc drive requires only two tapes.
The bracket 32 of the linear carriage 41 is provided here with a ball head 42 which is engaged in for example a stationary tubular stop 81 which may be attached to a magnetic holder 80 or a stationary machine housing part. The respective mounting location is at the outer area of the operating space of the machine tool 1.
The tubular stop 81 has a conical bore 82 or a notch with correspondingly inclined planar flanks so as to provide for a play-free engagement of the ball head 42—at least in longitudinal direction of the carriage. With this embodiment of a stop, the spiral compression spring 38 shown in
The
Herein, during coupling, the center lines of the indexing cavity 54 and the indexing bolt 90 are disposed in a plane which in each case is oriented normal to said centerlines.
On the pivot head shaft 51, which extends at least at one side from the housing 11, the pivot wheel 53 is arranged for rotation therewith. For example, the conical indexing cavity 54 extends up to the center of the pivot wheel 53.
As shown in
The indexing bolt guide structure 86 in accordance with
As shown in
Now the tool pivot unit 10 is moved by the machine tool side carriage so along a circular path 9 that the A-axis 52 is pivoted with the fixed distance 99 about the indexing bolt pivot axis 85, see
When the pivot head 50 has reached a predetermined pivot angle, the tool pivot unit 10 is moved away from the indexing bolt guide structure 86, see
The
The linear carriage 125 is supported in a friction free manner in for example a two-part housing cover (112, 113). As shown in
For pivoting the rotatable disc 116 with respect to the flange 111, the series-connected pivot unit 110 is moved for example by the machine tool carriage 2 in the longitudinal direction rection of the linear carriage 125. At the end of the machine side operating chamber, the respective, for example planar, front face 129 of the linear carriage 125 comes into contact with for example a spherical stop 83 which is arranged stationarily opposite the series-connected pivot unit 110. Since the series-connected pivot unit 110 moves toward the stop 83 the linear carriage 125 rolls off the rotatable disc 116 via the tapes (131-133). The rotatable disc 116 in this way pivots the machine tool pivot unit in a predetermined manner.
In order to reverse the pivot movement the machine tool carriage 2 is moved in the opposite direction while rolling along the rotatable disc 116 held in engagement with the disc by the tapes. At the opposite end of the separating chamber, the linear carriage 125 abuts another stop.
Instead of the roller arc drive also in this case a gear rack drive may be used. Also, a pivot disc support drive adjustment device as shown in
The linear carriage 125 as shown in
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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10 2008 017 117.4 | Apr 2009 | DE | national |
This is a Continuation-in-Part Application of pending international patent application PCT/DE2009/000429 filed Apr. 2, 2009 and claiming the priority of German Patent application 10 2008 017 117.4 filed Apr. 2, 2008.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | PCT/DE2009/000429 | Apr 2009 | US |
Child | 12924624 | US |