Improved control system for grinding apparatus

Abstract

The present disclosure provides a Grinding apparatus for grinding working tips of hard metal inserts of rock drill bits, comprising: a grinding machine, means for holding a rock drill bit to be ground and a support system, the support system, the grinding machine equipped with a spindle assembly having an output drive shaft having a longitudinal axis, one of a plurality of grinding tools of different sizes and profiles detachably connected to the output drive shaft for grinding different sizes and profiles of working tips; and having a control system having a programmable operator control panel capable of directly or indirectly monitoring and adjusting one or more operational parameters, a programmable control card provided having a circuit board containing a central processor, an RFID reader provided within operator control panel together with a touch screen display wherein when the free end of a grinding cup equipped with an RFID tag in accordance with present invention is inserted into the RFID reader a proximity sensor detects the RFID tag and scans the data on the tag wherein the data includes a specific ID identifier for the particular grinding cup and the number of grinding cycles over which it has been used to date.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.