Lathe

Details Lathe Lathe

1994-04-05

1996-02-13

Briggs, William

Metal working

Plural diverse manufacturing apparatus including means for...

Type of machine

29 40, 82121, B23B 2932, B23B 714

Patent

active

054903076

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to a lathe, in particular a CNC lathe, with a workpiece spindle defining a Z-axis as well as a tool carrier slide which bears a tool carrier in the form of a tool turret having a turret body and a turret head and is displaceable in the direction of a first axis (X-axis) extending transversely to the Z-axis, whereby workpiece spindle and tool carrier slide are displaceable relative to one another in the direction of or parallel to the Z-axis.
On account of the requirement that workpieces are to be machinable in a lathe as completely as possible, an increasing number of driven tools are used in the tool turrets of lathes. The machining capacity of these driven turret tools is, however, considerably limited due to the constructional space available in a turret head and the necessarily long drive chain--in known automatic turret lathes a motor mounted on the slide bearing the tool turret drives a central drive shaft which extends concentrically to the indexing axis of the turret head and ends in the turret head where it is provided with a bevel wheel, which meshes with bevel wheels of tool spindles rotatably mounted in the turret head and arranged in star form; on account of the small constructional space available in the turret head, these bevel wheels are, of necessity, relatively small and all the turret tools are driven at the same rotational speed.
For driven tools having a high machining capacity, it was therefore decided to provide a tool carrier with only one drivable tool spindle instead of a tool turret. This does, however, have the disadvantage that a tool change has to be made after each operation, which leads to an unfavorable ratio between machining times and idle periods, in which workpieces cannot be machined.
Typical for the last construction trend mentioned above is the lathe according to EP-0 259 637-B which has a headstock for mounting a workpiece spindle which is displaceable in the direction of the Z-axis and a tool carrier slide which, for its part, is borne by a lower slide displaceable in the direction of the X-axis. The tool carrier slide designed as a sleeve-guided slide is displaceable in the lower slide in the direction of the Y-axis, which is at right angles to the plane defined by the X-axis and the Z-axis, and mounted for rotation about the Y-axis so that the tool carrier mounted on the tool carrier slide has a B-axis. A drivable tool spindle, e.g. for a milling tool, is mounted in this tool carrier such that the spindle axis extends transversely to the Y-axis. Above the cross-slide system formed by the lower slide and the sleeve-guided slide, this known lathe has a tool magazine with which a tool changer is associated in order to be able to change the tool held in the tool spindle after the tool carrier has been swivelled through 180.degree. about the B-axis or Y-axis.
EP-0 185 011-B discloses an automatic turret lathe, the turret head of which has at least one tool receiving means for a driven tool, in particular a milling tool. The purpose of this known lathe is to replace a true Y-axis of a tool carrier slide system by a swivelling of the tool turret about a B-axis, coordinated with a transverse feed, and/or a rotation of the turret head about its indexing axis. For this purpose, the tool turret is arranged on a cross-slide system having a Z-axis and an X-axis, a turret body is mounted on the upper slide of this cross-slide system so as to be pivotable about the Y-axis and consequently has a B-axis, and the turret head is held on the turret body so as to be rotatable about an indexing axis (A-axis) extending transversely to the Y-axis. This known lathe therefore has the disadvantage mentioned at the outset, i.e. that only tools having a relatively small machining capacity can be accommodated in the turret head. In addition, a non-driven tool having a high machining capacity, such as, e.g., a boring bar, which is mounted on a turret head, can also not be completely satisfactory because the high forces occurring at such a tool prevent the manufacture of v

REFERENCES:
patent: 3750244 (1973-08-01), Smith
patent: 4571796 (1986-02-01), Sellner et al.
patent: 4704926 (1987-11-01), Boffelli
patent: 4785525 (1988-11-01), Ishida et al.
patent: 5125142 (1992-06-01), Kosho et al.
patent: 5214829 (1993-06-01), Minagawa
patent: 5341551 (1994-08-01), Brown et al.
patent: 5392501 (1995-02-01), Sonnek

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