Tuesday 18 June 2013

See - A New Idea In The Machining World

In the competitive world of machining, we need to look for new technologies to help reduce costs and boost productivity. One area that has been largely missed is the use of vision systems to help daily machining operations. Using a machine tool's positioning system to help setup, inspect and ultimate ensure quality is a new idea in this machining world. So today I want to introduce a new idea in the machining world - the TooliVision CNC Scope...
 

Heads Up - CNC Machining Vision Systems Are Coming

  
This patented TooliVision product is a new visual tool for the machining world. Like a touch probe in functionality, it mounts a robust high contrast USB camera into the machine tool's spindle.
 
The accompanying TooliVision software has a cross hair calibrated to the center of spindle rotation super-imposed on the image from the part it sees. This new product has a 40x magnification camera that captures images by using 20 infra red LEDs so it can literally see in the dark at a 3 inch focal length. This product can see where touch probes cannot and half the price. Besides setup time reduction, the TooliVision system can also capture the critical feature images for traceability and enhanced quality control if desired. Finally, the TooliVision CNC Scope has a 3/4" stud that can fit any CAT30, CAT40 & CAT50 tool holders and thus be mounted to most machines or even used beside the machine for inspection.
 
In summary this new visual tool for CNC machining helps with CNC setup time reduction, CMM feature recognition, part feature measuring, feature image capturing and rapid quality inspection while right on the machine.
 


TooliVision CNC Scope
Robustly made, the TooliVision CNC Scope can be loaded manually by the operator to help setup a fixture, clamp, vise or part properly and quickly. Using the MPG, the operator can move to the corner of the part, focus and see the coordinates to set a work zero. Seeing key features also allows for inspection of the parts perpendicularity with the machine. One can also see chips underneath, or part miss-alignments easily thereby saving scrap parts immediately and reducing set up time. 
 
40x Magnification Allows Operators To See Their Work
 
The TooliVision CNC Scope has a 40x magnification which is useful for inspecting small features, holes, walls or surfaces. Using the position system if the machine tool, one can measure parts and even calibrate the machined part to a NIST proof ring for extra post machining accuracy traceability.
 

Operators use the vision system before and after machining to reduce setup and ensure quality parts.
Although Nexas didn't invent this product, we see a huge market for using the vision system creatively to really help optimize manufacturing. We are so excited about this advance that we have exclusively licensed this product and are making software now to complement its features. The areas to address first are an automated way of taking images and managing them. Then a move towards a wireless version is our next challenge. 
 
As well, we are now making visual feature extraction feature software to auto-generate the important feature positions for the machine tool to run as G code. So at the end of a job, one runs the software to create a program to automatically inspect the part you just made and you can have images of every key point along the way.
 
From detection of quality issues to Foreign Object Debris (FOD), the TooliVision CNC Scope will be a valued tool to reduce setup time and help operators do their job. The future is quite bright as the new world of CNC vision systems comes to light...