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.
Claims23
A machine tool arranged to machine an object from material that is being processed and having a material-remover,
- said material-remover having at least two degrees of freedom of movement and at an instant being arranged to move with a velocity and to remove an amount of material up to a depth of cut from the material that is being processed,
- processing circuitry being provided and arranged to control the movement of said material-remover including being arranged to control said depth of cut,
- the processing circuitry further comprising a track planner arranged to associate one or more tracks around the perimeter of the object to be machined,
- the or each said track comprising a locus of paths bounded by the minimum and maximum depths of cut that the material-remover can be controlled along around the object in a single pass,
- the processing circuitry being further arranged to determine the path also which the material-remover is caused to move from within the or each track, allowing said depth of cut to vary such that a predetermined speed is maintained as the material-remover moves along the determined path,
- the processing circuitry further comprising a node associator arranged to associate nodes, each having a radius, with predetermined points of the or each track such that the determined path is tangent to the nodes.
A machine tool arranged to machine object from material that is being processed and 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 to be 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 the paths the material-remover can be controlled along around the object,
- the processing circuitry further comprises a node associator arranged to associate a number of nodes, each having a radius, with predetermined points around the or each contour that has or have been associated,
- the processing circuitry further comprising a curve associator arranged to associate a curve with at least a portion of the periphery of 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.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.