US 6,477,441 B1Granted

Numerical control system having a built-in personal computer

AssigneeMitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha

InventorMasakazu Sagasaki

Life of this patent

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Abstract

A numerical control system having a built in personal computer (PC), is made up of an interrupt generation circuit in an NC section for generating an interrupt in the NC section when a power off switch is pressed, PC termination acknowledgement means in the NC section for sending a termination request to a PC section, acknowledging a termination notification from the PC section, and requesting a DS output circuit to turn off the power of a power unit, a PC power down handling section in the PC section for forcibly terminating an application program and an operating system in the PC section after receiving the termination request sent from the PC termination acknowledgement means in the NC section, and a BIOS section for checking that the operating system is terminated and sending a termination notification to the NC section. Thus, in the numerical control system having a built-in PC, the power is turned off soundly without destroying an external storage unit such as a hard disk storage unit.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A numerical control system having a numerical control (NC) system section and a personal computer (PC) section, said numerical control system comprising:

an interrupt generation circuit provided in the numerical control system section for generating an interrupt in the NC system section when a power off switch is pressed;
PC termination acknowledgement means provided in the numerical control system section for sending a termination request to the personal computer section when the interrupt is generated by said interrupt generation circuit, acknowledging a PC termination notification from the personal computer section, and requesting a signal output circuit to turn on a signal previously assigned to power off a power unit;
a PC power down handling section provided in the personal computer section for forcibly terminating an application program and an operating system in the personal computer section after receiving the termination request sent from said PC termination acknowledgement means in the numerical control system section;
PC power down handling start wait means provided in the personal computer section for waiting for at least a power supply voltage holding time after the power of the power unit is turned off at the beginning of PC power down handling for preventing said operating system from advancing to the next process, and
a BIOS section provided in the personal computer section for checking that the operating system is terminated and sending the PC termination notification to the numerical control system section,
wherein the power unit turns off power as the signal assigned to power off is turned on by the signal output circuit.

3 more elements

A numerical control system having a numerical control system section and a personal computer section, said numerical control system comprising:

power off request signal detection means provided in the numerical control system section for detecting a power off request signal from a ladder circuit section;
ladder circuit correspondence PC termination acknowledgement means provided in the numerical control system section for sending a termination request to the personal computer section when the power off request signal is detected by said power off request signal detection means and acknowledging a termination notification from the personal computer section;
power off enable signal output means provided in the numerical control system section for turning on a power off enable signal of the ladder circuit section when said ladder circuit correspondence PC termination acknowledgement means acknowledges the PC termination notification from the personal computer section;
a PC power down handling section provided in the personal computer section for forcibly terminating an application program and an operating system in the personal computer section after receiving the termination request sent from said ladder circuit correspondence PC termination acknowledgement means in the numerical control system section;
and PC power down handling start wait means provided in the personal computer section for waiting for at least a power supply voltage holding time after the power of the power unit is turned off at the beginning of PC power down handling, for preventing said operating system from advancing to the next process;
a BIOS section provided in the personal computer section for checking that the operating system is terminated and sending a PC termination notification to the numerical control system section,
wherein the power unit turns off power when a signal assigned to power off, in the ladder circuit section, is turned on by a signal output circuit, and the power off enable signal of the ladder circuit section is turned on by said power off enable signal output means.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 09/367,739Filed 15 Feb 2000
Priority: JP 9-03533519 Feb 1997
Granted: 5 Nov 2002
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification6 codes

G06F 9/442
Bootstrapping: shutdown
G05B 19/4145
Structure of the control system, e.g. common controller or multiprocessor systems, interface to servo, programmable interface controller:…
G05B 2219/50083
Machine tool, machine tool null till machine tool work handling: power loss, measures again loss of power
G05B 2219/50084
Machine tool, machine tool null till machine tool work handling: keep position, setup parameters in memory