Tool changing – Process
Patent
1993-03-03
1995-12-26
Howell, Daniel W.
Tool changing
Process
483 15, 483 64, B23Q 3157
Patent
active
054783003
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to an automated pallet handling system for machine tools.
It is known, for example, from U.K. Patent Specification No. 1,263,912 to provide a fully automated machine tool installation. In particular this specification describes a machine tool installation in which a machine tool spindle may move between a plurality of artefact containing pallets, which are automatically loaded onto the machine. The artefacts carried by the pallets may be workpieces, chucks, or tools. The spindle is programmed to pick up from a pallet, either a tool with which to perform a machining operation on a workpiece held in another pallet, or a workpiece, which is then transported by the spindle into proximity with static or live tooling on another pallet, to perform a different type of machining operation on the workpiece.
Although such machine tool installations provide great flexibility in the number and type of machining operations which can be carried out in an automated sequence, the pallets are flat and dedicated to one type of tool or workpiece and are expensive to produce.
In our International Application published under the number WO 91/04127 there is described and claimed a multi-fixturing system for a machine in which a plurality of workpiece-providing pallets are mounted on the periphery of a core which is rotatably mounted on the machine. The pallets, which are of a particular type, and are referred to throughout said International Application as cassettes, replace the prior pallets to provide a flexible and relatively inexpensive system.
The present invention is a development of the system described in the above-mentioned International Application by means of which a machine tool installation is adapted for fully automated operation with such pallets or cassettes.
According to the present invention there is provided an automated pallet handling system for a machine tool, the machine tool having an indexing spindle rotatable about a first axis and a machining spindle rotatable about a second axis, the pallet handling system comprising: and clamping cassettes in position thereon, said device being mounted on the indexing spindle of the machine tool for rotation therewith to position the cassettes in relation to the spindle for an operation by the machining spindle on artefacts provided by the cassettes, thereon for co-operating with the locating and clamping means on the cassette-receiving device, positionable adjacent to the machine tool and which includes drive means for positioning a desired cassette relative to the cassette-receiving device, and a cassette transfer mechanism for transferring cassettes between the cassette-loading system and the cassette-receiving device, and transfer mechanism, the clamping means and said machine tool to provide the correct artefacts to the machine tool in accordance with a pre-programmed sequence of machining operations.
The cassette-receiving device is preferably designed to locate and clamp more than one cassette and the cassette-loading system can be programmed to transfer cassettes from their stored position to the cassette-receiving device independently of each other.
This novel aspect of the invention provides the machine tool with the capability of changing one or more cassettes while others remain stored in the working volume of the machine tool and hence provides a greatly improved flexibility for the machine tool over the standard pallet changing system in which only a single pallet can be positioned in the working volume of the machine tool at any one time.
Another preferred feature of the invention is that each cassette is relatively thin compared to a conventional flat pallet thus allowing them to be stored side by side in much larger numbers on the cassette-loading system, providing the possibility of reduced floor space for storage of the same number of tools and workpieces.
The cassette-loading system is preferably in the form of a chain conveyor of which the links are made from low cost lightweight extrusions. This enables the conveyor
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Buckingham Mark A.
James Nicholas A.
McMurtry David R.
Saunders Marc T B
Demello Jill
Howell Daniel W.
Renishaw Metrology Limited
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