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US 5,058,406 AGranted
Plate bending machine equipped with a plate clamping manipulator and a plate position detecting device
AssigneeAmada Company, Limited
InventorsFranco Sartorio, Gianpaolo Prunotto, Francesco Sgandurra, Salvatore Arghiracopulos
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A press brake for bending plates. A press brake is provided for bending plates, including a pair of dies which act in mutual cooperation to bend a plate, a plate clamping manipulator which grasps and moves a plate which is to be placed in a scheduled location with respect to the dies, and a plate position detector mounted on the press brake in a specified positional relationship with respect to the dies, for detecting a position of the plate grasped by the manipulaator, and controlling the manipulator in response to a signal from the plate position detector.
Claims14
A press brake comprising:
- a pair of dies which can act in mutual cooperation to bend a workpiece having edges;
- a manipulator for grasping and moving the workpiece which is to be placed in an object position with respect to the dies;
- and
- detector means, mounted in a frame of the press brake in a specified positional relationship with respect to the dies, for detecting a plurality of points along the edges of the workpiece provided by the manipulator, thereby detecting a current position;
- and
- means for controlling the manipulator in response to a signal from the workpiece position detector means by adjusting the workpiece edges relative to the detector means so that the workpiece is positioned in the object position with respect to the dies;
- said means for controlling including means for calculating a spacing between the current position of the workpiece and the object position of the workpiece for at least two of said plurality of points along the edges of the workpiece and means for moving the workpiece so that each of said plurality of points moves toward each object position by a predetermined distance, the predetermined distance being determined by multiplying each of the calculated spacings by a factor which is smaller than one.
4 more elements
A method of positioning a workpiece with respect to a press brake, the positioning occurring between current and object positions comprising the steps of:
- inserting the workpiece between dies of the press brake;
- positioning the workpiece in a current position with respect to the dies;
- detecting the current positions of a plurality of sections of the workpiece with respect to object positions thereof;
- calculating a first spacing between the current position of the first section of the workpiece and the object positions of the same, and calculating a second spacing between the current position of the second section of the workpiece and the object position of the same;
- moving the workpiece so that each of the sections thereof moves toward each of the object positions thereof by a predetermined distance, the predetermined distance being determined by multiplying each of the spacings calculated above by a factor which is smaller than one.
2 more elements
A press brake comprising:
- a pair of dies which can act in mutual cooperation to bend a workpiece having edges and lying substantially in a workpiece plane, the dies having a longitudinal axis;
- a manipulator for grasping and moving the workpiece which is to be placed in an object position with respect to the dies, the manipulator including a single motor for rotating the workpiece about an axis perpendicular to the surface of the workpiece positioned in the workpiece plane;
- detector means, mounted on a frame of the press brake in a specified positioning relationship with respect to the dies, for detecting a plurality of points along the edges of the workpiece provided by the manipulator, thereby detecting a current position of the workpiece edges with respect to the detector means;
- means for controlling the manipulator in response to a signal from the workpiece position detector means by adjusting the workpiece edges relative to the detector means so that the workpiece is positioned in the object position with respect to the dies;
- and
- the control means calculating spacings DEX and SX between current positions of the workpiece and the object positions of the workpiece for two of the plurality of points along the edges of the workpiece;
- calculating from the spacings DEX and SX a first parameter YM substantially representing the mean of the spacings DEX and SX, and a second parameter ALFA substantially representing the rotation of the edge of the workpiece about the axis perpendicular to the surface thereof with respect to the longitudinal axis of the dies, rotationally moving the workpiece by said motor so that each of the first and the second parameters decreases;
- and stopping the rotational movement of the workpiece when at least the first parameter YM gets small than a predetermined value YS.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.