Apparatus and Method for Sheet Metal Part Alignment

Sheet metal parts that are to be bent to shape in a press brake are usually aligned to the dies of the press brake with an outer contour of the work piece. This works very well when the bendline is parallel to the outer profile, but when that is not the case the part has to be lined up with the centerline of the punch and die using rulers and similar tools, which is time consuming.

It was determined that parts can be automatically aligned to a press brake.

An alignment table has a plurality of openings each of which has a wheel protruding through to provide a movable surface for a flat work piece. The wheels are each gimbal mounted to be swiveled from an X through a Y direction, and are grouped in sections with selective varying alignment between sections and common alignment within each section. A drive system consisting of a series of driven parallel shafts are mounted to the underside of the table. Each shaft has a series of spaced-apart disks mounted thereon. Each wheel is located to move against and to be driven by one of the disks when the wheels are in the extreme of the X or the extreme of the Y position. The drive system is divided into two halves with a right side drive and a separately controlled left side drive. A pair of electro-optical scanners determine the work part position with respect to the forming dies in a press brake and initiate signals to swivel the wheels and control the drive system. An alternate drive system moves up into contact with and drives the wheels when the wheels are swiveled into a position for rapid rotation about a virtual pivot point on the brake press die centerline.

FIG. 1 shows a perspective view of this invention.

FIG. 2 shows a plan view of wheel alignment for this invention with the wheels aligned in an X position.

FIG. 3 shows a plan view of wheel alignment with the wheels in a Y position.

FIG. 4 shows a plan view of wheel alignment with the wheels in position for providing maximum rotation.

FIG. 5 shows a fragmented side elevational view of the drive for the alignment table of this invention.

FIG. 6 shows a fragmented plan view of FIG. 5.

FIG. 7 shows a fragmented side elevational view of a typical wheel in the X position along with the drive for that wheel.

FIG. 8 shows a sectional view taken along line 8--8 of FIG. 7.

FIG. 9 shows a sectional view taken along line 9--9 of FIG. 7.

FIG. 10 shows the view of FIG. 7 with the wheel in the Y position.

FIG. 11 shows a sectional view taken along line 11--11 of FIG. 10.

FIG. 12 shows the view of FIG. 7 with the wheel rotated to a 45 degree angle for maximum rotation.

FIG. 13 shows a sectional view taken along line 13--13 of FIG. 12.

FIG. 14 shows a perspective view of the alternate drive system for the wheels.

FIG. 15 shows a fragmented side elevational view of a row of wheels being contacted by the alternate drive system.

FIG. 16 is a fragmented side elevational view showing one of a series of spacers for the alternate drive system with the spacer holding the alternate drive away from the wheel as shown in FIG. 7.

FIG. 17 is a fragmented side elevational view as in FIG. 16 with the spacer allowing the alternate drive to contact the wheels as in FIG. 15.

FIG. 18 shows a block diagram of the controls for this invention.

FIG. 19 shows a schematic of the alignment table with electro-optical scanner.

An alignment machine 10, has a feed conveyor 11, an alignment table 12, electro-optical scanner 14, and a numerical control unit 16 to provide automatic feed of sheet metal work piece 18 into press brake 20. The alignment table has a plurality of holes 22 arranged in a grid pattern through tabletop 24. Each hole has a rotatable wheel 26 mounted below the table that extends slightly above the table top to in combination provide a surface to support the work piece. Each wheel is mounted to a gimbal 28, which can rotate around a vertical axis, and is held by washers 30 which in turn are secured by bolts 31 to the table. The gimbal permits the wheel to be swiveled through 90 degrees to be aligned from an X through a Y direction. FIG. 2 shows the wheels all aligned in an X direction, FIG. 3 shows the wheels aligned in a Y direction, and FIG. 4 shows the wheels selectively swiveled to provide maximum rotation to the work piece.

Two identical alignment tables 12 are used. One is as shown and the other one, now shown, is located on the other side of the press brake. The optical system 14 provides control signals for both tables.

FIGS. 7 through 13 show a typical wheel 26 in various stages of alignment. In FIGS. 7 through 9 it is aligned in an X direction; in the Y direction in FIGS. 10 and 11, and at an angle of 45 degrees in FIGS. 12 and 13. The wheel is rotatably mounted to the gimbal 26 with rod 32 and bearing 34. The wheels are swiveled between the various alignment positions by reciprocally movable and independently movable parallel rods 36, 38 and 40. An L shaped pin 42 is pivotally mounted to the rod and extends into a slot 44 in the gimbal to swivel the gimbal with wheel as the rod moves. The rods are all parallel and are arranged to control the wheels in various areas. The first area is a centrally located pie shape pointed toward the centerline of the press brake. All of the wheels in that area are controlled by rods 36. The second and third areas are pie-shaped areas adjacent the press brake, are pointed toward each other and are controlled by rods 40. The fourth and fifth areas are modified pie shaped, located between the other areas, are essentially pointed toward the centerline of the press brake at an angle of about 45 degrees, and are controlled by rods 38. Each same numbered rod is connected to a plate, as best shown in FIGS. 5 and 6, with rods 36, 38 and 40 respectively joined to plates 46, 48, and 50 by angle irons 52, 54 and 56. The plates are individually driven by servo-motors 58, 60 and 62; which act through gearing to drive rods 64, 66 and 68 respectively. Those rods extend both ways to rotate pinion gears 70, 72 and 74; which in turn act upon racks 76, 78 and 80. A set of those racks and pinions are located on each end of the drive shafts with the racks joined to the plates.

The drive system 82 for the wheels 26 is best shown in FIGS. 5 and 6. The drive system, actually made up of two separate matching systems 82a and 82b, each provide a drive for one-half of the wheel. Each system has a servo-motor 84 with gears 86 acting through intermediate gearing to rotate gear 88 which is connected to drive shaft 90. A series of bevel gears 92 are joined to the drive shaft to drive mating gears 94, each of which connects to a drive shaft 96. Each of these drive shafts have a plurality of mounted disks 98, each having a circumferentially located resilient ring 100 and a shaped hub 102. The disks are spaced apart to the located adjacent one of the wheels. The wheels each have a pair of circumferentially located resilient 104 and 106. The larger ring 104 comes in contact with the work piece 18 to impart direction to that work piece, and the smaller ring is located to contact the hub 102 of the disk 98 to permit driving the wheel when the wheel is in the X position. See FIG. 8. The wheel is contacted by and driven by the resilient ring of the disk when the wheel is in the Y direction. Slight rotation away from either the X or the Y direction moves the wheel out of contact with the primary drive system.

FIG. 14 shows an alternate drive system 108. That system uses a support member 110 approximating the size of the alignment table 12. Mounted to the support member are a number of drive shafts 112 each generally directed toward a rotational pivot point centered 114, see FIG. 18, on the press brake with each shaft having a number of spaced apart disks 116 that decrease in diameter as the shaft approaches the pivot point. The drive shafts are arranged in patterns with parallel shafts 112a in the first area in a centrally located pie shape, parallel shafts 112b and parallel shafts 112c adjacent and parallel to the press brake, and parallel shafts 112d and parallel 112e each aligned at about 27 degrees with respect to the press brake. The drive shafts 112 are all driven simultaneously with a common drive system. FIGS. 5 and 6 show a servo-motor 118 mounted to the alignment table 12 which motor provides the power. That motor has gear 120 which meshes with a larger diameter gear 122. This gear in turn meshes with another large gear 124. Connected to this gear is a drive shaft 126 which in turn is geared to drive shafts 128 and 130. All three of these shafts each has a plurality of gears 132 located to mesh with a plurality of gears 134 located on the outer end of each 112 drive shaft.

The support member 110, as part of the alternate drive system 108, is mounted from a plurality of support locations below the alignment table 12 in a manner to permit raising the support member to bring disks 116 into alignment with resilient rings 106 of wheels 26 to drive those wheels. FIGS. 16 and 17 show a typical support location for the support member. A stud 136 is joined directly to the underside of the alignment table. A bar 138 is secured to the stud with screws 140 in a manner to permit reciprocal movement of the bar toward and away from the alignment table. A tapered head 142 is secured to the upper end of the bar with the tapered part contacting rod 38. A bolt 144 threads into the support member and a nut 146 permits a locking adjustment. The upper end of the bolt fits into a small pocket 147 in the lower end of the bar 138. The support member is continually urged upward by a spring 148, one end of which is secured by a bolt 150 to the stud and the other end is joined to an adjustable fastener 152 that is secured to the support member. Rod 38 has a tapered slot 154 that is sized to accept the tapered head on the end of the bar. This tapered slot is located to be directly over the tapered head when the rod 38 is moved to a position to align the wheels at a 45 degree angle. When the tapered head is contacting the rod, bolt 144 is adjusted to keep disks 116 away from the wheels, but when the tapered head is resting in the tapered slot all the disks are contacting and driving the wheels. This alternate drive is used when the wheels are aligned for maximum rotation of the work piece 18 with the wheels arranged as in FIG. 4 for maximum rotation about pivot point 114. When in that alignment, the wheels seeming to be in the X, and the wheels seeming to be in the Y position are slightly turned from those positions to move the wheels out of contact with the drive hubs 102 and disks 100 of the primary drive system and the wheels are all driven by the alternate drive system 108.

Controls for the alignment are shown as a block diagram in FIG. 18. Only the left half of that diagram is shown completely; however, the right half is built symmetrically for those units having a letter following the identification number. The electro-optical scanner unit 14 has lazer units 156a and 156b, which respectively send a beam of collimated light into beam splitters 158a and 158b. These splitters cause 50% of the light to be reflected downward at 90 degrees and 50% to continue without deflection. The deflected beam is again deflected at 90 degrees by plane mirrors 160a and 160b, continues through a hollow shaft in scanner motors 162a and 162b and into 45 degrees prisms 164a and 164b which deflect the beam at 90 degrees so that it will rotate in a plane perpendicular to the motor shaft where it will scan over work piece 18 with light traces 166a and 166b as best shown in FIG. 19. In that figure the work piece has been previously marked with retro-reflective paint along bend line 168. When each light trace strikes the bend line, light is reflected back along the path it originally took until it reaches the beam splitters 158a and 158b where 50% of the light will enter and trigger light response detectors 170a and 170b. Those detectors will trigger and send detector pulses 172a and 172b to time analog conversion units 174a and 174b. The scanner motor has a disk with narrow slots 176a and 176b. Electro-optical detectors 178a and 178b are located to initiate pulses 180a and 180b when the slot is in a referenced position, and this pulse is sent to the time analog conversion units to provide a comparative pulse between the desired position for the bend line and the actual position. The scanner motors are mounted to permit adjustment to handle different work pieces. The motors are positioned by stepper motors 182a and 182b acting through cables 184a and 184b, and end position sensor switches 186a and 186b are located to be a starting reference point when contacted by the scanner motors and to initiate reference pulses 188a and 188b that are sent to a scanner position control unit 190.

In operation, a work piece 18 has a bend line marked on the piece in reflective point 168. The work pieces are then placed on a conveyor 11 and transferred onto alignment table 12. The numerical control unit 16 has a part program memory unit 192 which holds necessary information to perform alignment and bends on the part. This information is transmitted to an operation decoder and sequencing unit 194; which in turn will, at the proper time, send control signals to the scanner position control unnit 190, the time analog conversion units 174a and 174b, to right and left servo drive units 196a and 196b, to a rotation servo drive unit 198, to a gimbal rotation control unit 200, and to a press brake ram position servo unit 202. The signal 204 sent from the operation decoder and sequencing unit sets out the desired scanner positions and signals are sent over lines 206a and 206b to actuate the stepper motors and position the scanner motors. Next signals 208a and 208b go to the time analog conversion units and govern the marking of bend location to use if the part has more than one marking. The time analog conversion units compare desired versus actual locations of the bend line on the part from the 172a and b and the 180a and b signals and initiate error marking signals 210a and 210b. One of the places that signal feeds back to is the operation decoder sequencing unit; which in turn sends a signal 212 to the gimbal rotation control unit 200. That unit will send control signals 214, 216 and 218 through power amplifiers 220, 222 and 224 to the respective servo motors 58, 60 and 62 to arrange the rotatable wheels 26 mounted in the gimbals 28 into one of the patterns shown in FIGS. 2, 3 and 4. Feedback signals 226 and 226b, 228a and 228b and 230a and 230b emanating from respective optoelectronic switches 232a and 232b. 234a 234b and 236a and 236b provide the signal for stopping swiveling when the wheels are in the desired sequenced position. When the wheels are in the X or the Y positions, signals 238a and 238b are sent from the operation decoder and sequencing unit 194 to the servo drives 196a and 196b; those signals are compared with signals 210a and 210b, and the wheels are driven by the primary drive system consisting of the right side drive system 82a and the left side drive system 82b. These drive systems each drive wheels over their half of the alignment table by servo motors 84a and 84b respectively. All the wheels in each half are driven at the same speed with each drive motor driven at a rate proportional to a rate command signal 240a or 240b. Each of these motors is of the motor-generator type and acts as a feedback transducer to send a rate feedback signal 242a or 242b which is compared with the rate command and the difference is amplified and applied to the motor to move the part with the painted bend line 168 over the center of the line of the die 244 at which location the drives are stopped. Next a signal 246 is sent from the operation decoder and sequencing unit to the press brake ram position servo 202, at which time the press brake bends the work piece. When sensing to the operation decoder and sequencing unit calls for maximum rotation of the work piece, the wheels are aligned as in FIG. 4, the alternate drive system moves up to contact and drive the wheels and a signal 248 is sent to the rotation servo drive unit 198, which compares that signal with the marking error signals 210a and 210b from the time analog conversion units 174a and 174b and sends a signal 250 to the servo motor 84b. That motor which is of the motor-generator type acts as a feedback transducer to send a rate feedback signal 252 which is compared with the rate command to stop the motor when the work piece bend line is located over the center of the line of the die. Once the bend line marking is in proper position, the press brake is actuated to bend the part.