Metal deforming – With use of control means energized in response to activator... – Including use of sensor responsive to information carried by...
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-14
2001-05-08
Jones, David (Department: 3725)
Metal deforming
With use of control means energized in response to activator...
Including use of sensor responsive to information carried by...
C072S379200, C072S389300, C072S461000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06227022
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of bending operations and a bending system using the same, and more particularly to a method of bending operations in a plate material such as sheet metal by using a bending press such as a press brake, and a bending system using that method.
2. Prior Art
When various parts or products with complicated shapes are manufactured by performing one or more bending operations, various preparation steps have to be carried out before the actual bending operations are performed. Examples of such preparation steps are as follows: determining the order of bending operations along bending lines; arranging bending tools on a bending press; and adjusting the positions of the bending tools in the bending press. In fact, conventionally, enormous working hours has been wasted to carry out these preparation steps. Further, when a bending operation for manufacturing a specific product has been finished, the data concerning the preparation steps has been thrown away. Thus, even when products that are the same as or similar to the previous product are manufactured later, the preparation steps had to be carried out again.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention is to solve the foregoing problems of the conventional method and system.
Specifically, the object of the present invention is to provide a method and a system for bending operation in which various data concerning preparation steps for a particular bending operation are suitably stored in a memory so that they can be used in a subsequent bending operations for manufacturing parts having the same shape or similar shapes.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method or a system by which an operator without skills in performing bending operations can easily and quickly perform precise bending operations on a workpiece by following skilled operator's experience, hints, or data.
To achieve the foregoing objects, according to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of generating data for manufacturing a product or a part with a predetermined shape by using a bending press that is provided with a detachable die. The method comprises the steps of:
entering shape data relating to the part or product;
entering a bending order for manufacturing the part or product from the workpiece;
selecting tools for performing the bending operations in the bending order;
entering die data for specifying the selected tools;
entering bending press control data for controlling the operation of the press for performing each bending operation which is performed in the bending order; and
entering bending operation support information for supporting an operator for performing the bending operation.
The bending operation support information includes at least one of the following hints or information regarding the operations of:
attaching a protective tape on the shoulder of a die;
arranging small tools on the bending press so that punch and die are laterally shifted from each other;
attaching a small die on a ram with a fixing tape;
aligning the punch and die relative to each other in a longitudinal direction;
determining the original point of one of the punch and die relative to the other;
positioning the workpiece relative to the punch and die;
positioning the workpiece relative to a back gauge device; and
inspecting dimensions of a shape of the workpiece after a bending operation.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided another method of manufacturing a part or a product with a predetermined shape by using a bending press that has a detachable die. This method comprises the steps of:
entering shape data relating to the part or the product;
entering a bending order for manufacturing the part or the product from the sheet metal:
selecting tools for performing each of bending operations to be performed in the bending order;
entering die data for specifying the selected tools;
mounting the selected die on the bending press;
entering bending press control data for controlling the operation of the bending press for performing each of the bending operations to be performed in the bending order;
bending the sheet metal in accordance with bending press control data for each of the bending operations; and
entering bending operation support information for supporting an operator who is to perform bending operations to manufacture a part or a product that has the same shape as or a shape similar to the part or the product produced in the foregoing bending step.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a still another method of manufacturing a part or a product having a predetermined shape by bending a sheet metal by a bending press. This method comprises the steps of:
determining a bending order and tools for use to manufacture the part or the product in accordance with the shape thereof;
storing the determined bending order and the tools in a computer memory;
selecting the determined tools from a die storage;
determining arrangement of the tools on the bending press;
storing the determined arrangement of the tools in the computer memory;
mounting the tools on a bending machine with the determined arrangement;
determining an attitude of insertion of the sheet metal into the bending press in each of the bending steps to be performed in the bending order;
storing the determined attitude of insertion of the determined sheet metal for each of the bending steps; and
inserting the sheet metal with the insertion attitude into the bending press for each of the bending steps and bending the sheet metal along predetermined bending lines on the sheet metal by the bending press.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for generating data for manufacturing a part by bending a workpiece along a plurality of bending lines by a bending press that has detachable tools. The system comprises:
a section that stores data for a shape of the part;
a section that stores data for a bending order for manufacturing the part from the workpiece;
a section that stores data for specifying the selected dies for each bending operation;
a section that stores bending press control data for controlling the operation of the press to performs the bending operations in the bending order; and
a section that stores bending operation support information for supporting an operator for performing the bending operation by using the bending press.
In accordance with the present invention, various optimum steps (or procedures) relating to the bending operations, which are carried out by a skilled operator for manufacturing a predetermined part or a product, are stored in a computer memory as operation information for each part. Therefore a non-skilled operator can learn, from the computer memory, the stored optimum operation information for each part or product later and easily and quickly perform the optimum steps (or procedures) for manufacturing the part or the product by following the skilled operator. That is, even a non skilled operator can quickly start the bending operation without taking an excessively long time for standby operations (or preparation steps) for manufacturing the part or product.
The term “part” in this specification means a product that is to be distributed in a market as well as a portion of the product.
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patent
Amada Company Limited
Greenblum & Bernstein P.L.C.
Jones David
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