Machine tools
AssigneeDelcam Limited
InventorSteven Michael Hobbs
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A machine tool 10 to fashion objects from blocks of material having a material-remover 16 able to move in at least two degrees of freedom and having the material 18 controlled by processing circuitry. The processing circuitry 18 determines a path along which the material-remover 16 should move, allowing the depth of a cut made by the material remover to vary. The movement of the material-remover 16 is so controlled to improve bulk material removal when compared to prior art machines.
Claims40
A machine tool having a material-remover, said material-remover having at least two degrees of freedom of movement, and at an instant being arranged to remove an amount of material, up to a depth of cut, from material that is being processed, processing circuitry being provided and arranged to control the movement of said material-remover, said processing circuitry determining a path along which said material-remover should move, and in determining said path said processing circuitry allowing said depth of cut made by the material-remover to vary.
A method of removing material from a block of material to fashion an object therefrom, said method comprising plotting a path for a material remover of a machine tool, said path being optimised by allowing the depth of a cut made by the material remover to vary.
A machine tool having a material-removing means, said material-removing means having at least two degrees of freedom of movement, and at an instant being arranged to remove an amount of material, up to a depth of cut, from material that is being processed, processing circuitry being provided and arranged to control the movement of said material-removing means, said processing circuitry determining a path along which said material-removing means should move, and in determining said path said processing circuitry allowing said depth of cut made by the material-removing means to vary.
A machine tool having a material-remover, said material-remover having at least two degrees of freedom of movement, and at an instant being arranged to remove an amount of material, up to a depth of cut, from material that is being processed, processing circuitry being provided and arranged to control the movement of said material-remover, said processing circuitry determining a path along which said material-remover should move, and in determining said path said processing circuitry allowing said depth of cut made by the material-remover to vary the processing circuitry further comprising a track planner arranged to associate one or more contours around the perimeter of an object to be machined, the or each said contour comprising a locus of all the possible material remover paths around the object, the processing circuitry further comprises a node associator arranged to associate a number of nodes with predetermined points around the track that has been associated, the processing circuitry further comprises a curve associator arranged to associate a curve with each of the nodes produced by the node associator, the processing circuitry further comprises a tangent generator arranged to associate a path between each of the curves generated by the curve associator wherein the processing circuitry is arranged to convert the tangents generated by the tangent generator together with portions of the curves provided by the curve associator into a path for the material remover.
A method of removing material from a block of material to fashion an object therefrom, said method comprising plotting a path for a material removing means of a machine tool, said path being optimised by allowing the depth of a cut made by the material removing means to vary.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.