Tool changing – Including machine tool or component – Reciprocating tool machine tool
Patent
1995-12-18
1999-06-22
Briggs, William
Tool changing
Including machine tool or component
Reciprocating tool machine tool
83563, 483 66, B23Q 3155, B21D 3714
Patent
active
059137614
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a punch press in which a large number of tool sets (punch and die combination) can be stored to deal with various sorts of workpieces and which is capable of performing tool set replacement at high speeds. The invention also relates to a tool set mounting method adapted in such a punch press, for mounting a punch and a die on the tool set mounting section of the punching head.
BACKGROUND ART
Conventionally, turret punch presses are generally used as a punching machine that is able to singly produce blanks of a plurality of certain shapes. A turret punch press comprises a pair of upper and lower turrets which hold punches and dies respectively and punches a workpiece with the punch and die which have been set in positions under a hammer by indexing. The turret punch presses can deal with a comparatively small number of lots, say, 100 to 5,000 lots so that they have met so far the needs of their market as a machine tool suited for use in the small quantity production of multiple kinds of items.
In recent years, however, there have arisen strong demands in the market towards the sales of multiple items in a much smaller number of lots with short delivery times. Under such a situation, the conventional turret punch presses, which can hold up to about 70 tool sets only, can no longer meet the market demands.
To overcome this problem, one turret punch press provided with an automatic tool set replacement system has been proposed and put to practical use. According to this punching machine, a tool set storage (i.e., tool set repository) for storing a number of tool sets is incorporated in or installed separately from the turret punch press and the automatic tool set replacement system supplies tool sets to the punching head from the tool set storage.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 4-11283 (1992) discloses one example of punch presses provided with an automatic tool set replacement system. According to this publication, a magazine for storing tool sets is disposed, in the form of an arc, in the area around the center of rotation of a tool mounting/dismounting apparatus. Japanese Patent Publication Laid-Open No. 4-13424 (1992) discloses another example in which a tool set storage is disposed within a gate-like frame and a tool set replacement system is provided so as to reciprocate freely between the tool set storage and the turret. A further example is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication Laid-Open No. 61-115630 (1986) in which a tool set magazine is so supported as to be rotatable about a horizontal, geometric axis and tool set replacement is performed by the linear, replacing motion of a tool set replacement system.
All of the prior punch presses with an automatic tool set replacement system disclosed in the above publications however fail in remarkably increasing the capacity of the tool set magazines to accommodate a large number of tool sets. In addition, the magazines of these punch presses require an extremely large space for installation if a number of tool sets are accommodated in them, which increases the distance between the punching head and the tool set storage position (i.e., the distance for tool set delivery), resulting in an increase in the time required for tool set replacement. As described above, in the prior turret punch presses equipped with an automatic tool set replacement system, if emphasis is placed on tool set replacement speed, it becomes difficult to increase the number of tool sets to be stored, and on the other hand, if emphasis is placed on the number of tool sets to be stored, tool set replacement speed decreases.
In the case of a punch press with an automatic tool set replacement system, a so-called tool set replacement operation is necessary, in which a tool set with which punching operation has been done is removed from the punching head while another tool set to be used for the next punching operation is mounted on the punching head.
One conventional example of tool set replacement systems for automatically performing s
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Kamada Ikuo
Kitagawa Takiji
Matsuura Satoshi
Briggs William
Komatsu Ltd.
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