Gaging’s Value for Effective Unattended CNC Machining

With unattended machining continuing to evolve comes increased need for process monitoring and predictive analytics to support lightly or fully unattended operation.

For example, in order to establish confidence in unattended machining processes, parts must be regularly measured for dimensional control and tools as well to detect wear and breakage. SPC Innovations now offers its Detector in-machine broken tool and part gaging system. The system consists of a universal industrial touchscreen that can be used to program and monitor wand-type, electronic contact sensors with encoders that are configured for either tool/part presence or part measurement. In-process part measurement of critical part attributes enables automatic changes to tool offsets to compensate for tool wear. It can also automatically reject parts found to be bad due to an anomaly such as a misload.

The new system accommodates as many as 16 sensors. The machine’s own material handling capability can be used to move a part to a sensor or a cross slide can be created to bring a sensor to a part to measure its diameter, length and more. The modular design is said to offer easy calibration and configuration of various sensors based on a specific part and enables the system to be installed on other machines. Plus, such automatic in-machine inspection can remove a significant amount of manual part sorting and measurement, and physical contact with the parts.

This supports the notion that automation is more than robotics, a trend highlighted in a recent story featuring other technology streamlining machining processes in similar ways.