Apparatus for Angularly Positioning

This invention relates to a mechanism for orienting a rotary member such as turn table, etc. in a predetermined angular position.

In a machine tool construction it is frequently necessary for accurately positioning a turn table in a predetermined angularly oriented position. This accurate positioning is needed for variety of purposes. For example, when effecting a turning work and a drilling work in a row, the accurate angular positioning of the turn table is required in an automatic operation.

To attain an accurate angular positioning of the turn table, it is desirable to employ a separate servo drive in addition to a main drive. To this end, a separate servo drive is provided solely for effecting the angular positioning of the turn table. An independent drive mechanism is provided for rotating the turn table in a work operation and this independent drive mechanism is rendered inoperative when the positioning movement is being effected by the servo drive.

U.S. Pat. No. 3,483,767 discloses such a separate servo drive mechanism for accurately positioning a rotary spindle; but this prior art device is disadvantageous in that it takes a relatively long time for angularly orienting the rotary spindle in a predetermined angular position.

Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 53-95379 discloses another prior art which employs two detectors, i.e. a rough detector and a fine detector. This prior art device can shorten the time required for angularly indexing the rotary member, but a control system thereof becomes very complicated.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for angularly positioning a rotary member which overcomes the above noted problems and can provide a very short net time for angular indexing of the rotary member.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for angularly positioning a rotary member wherein a servo drive system for angular positioning or indexing operation can be set to a predetermined angular reference position while a work operation is being effected, contributing to a shortened net time for angular indexing of the rotary member.

A further object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for angularly positioning a rotary member wherein the exact angular reference position is established at the side of smaller mass, i.e. servo motor side, allowing the rotary member having a larger mass to overrun a predetermined angular position of the rotary member upon discontinuation of its rotation.

In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for angularly positioning a rotary member, comprising: first drive means connectible to rotate said rotary member in a work operation; power transmission means operable to connect said first drive means with said rotary member for rotating said rotary member in a work operation; second drive means connectible to rotate said rotary member in an angular positioning movement; coupling means actuatable to connect said second drive means to said rotary member for rotating said rotary member while said first drive means is disconnected from said rotary member, said coupling means including a pair of complementary clutch members adapted to be engageable at a predetermined single position and normally biased to a disengaged position relative to each other; first detector means for detecting a predetermined angular reference position of one of said clutch members which is positioned to the side of said second drive means and generating a signal upon detection; a controller responsive to the signal of said first detector means for controlling the movement of said second drive means so as to stop said one clutch member at said predetermined angular reference position; and second detector means for detecting a predetermined angular position of said rotary member and allowing the other clutch member to engage with said one clutch member at said predetermined single position upon detection of the predetermined angular position of said rotary member, said second detector means being operated by the rotary movement of said rotary member when the same is being rotated by said first drive means.

The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of an apparatus for angularly positioning a rotary member according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic illustration of a turn table showing a relationship between a single predetermined reference position E.sub.1 of the turn table and possible engagement positions E.sub.1 -E.sub.7 of single position clutches employed;

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an operational relationship between turn table, single position clutch and second detector associated with the rotary movement of the turn table; and

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a control system employed in the present invention.

The present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Referring first to FIG. 1, reference numeral 10 denotes a turn table rotatable about its spindle or main shaft 12.

Fixedly secured to the spindle 12 is a gear 14 which is in mesh with gears 16 and 18. Designated generally by 20 is a main drive system for work operation.

The main drive system 20 includes a motor 22, a power transmission 24, bevel gears 26 and a single position clutch 28 mounted on a shaft 30 extending therethrough.

That is, input and output shafts of the single position clutch 28 are integrally formed with each other. The single position clutch 28 comprises an output side clutch member 29 fixedly mounted on the shaft 30 and an input side clutch member 31 mounted for rotation on the shaft 30 and engageable with the output side clutch member 29 at a single angular position. The gear 16 is fixedly mounted on the shaft 30 at the top end thereof. The power transmission 24 includes high and low speed change-over gears and a clutch formed therein (both are not shown).

Generally designated by 32 is a servo drive system for angularly positioning and indexing the turn table 10.

The servo drive system 32 comprises a servo motor 34, a resolver 36 operatively connected with the servo motor 34, a gear backlash eliminating mechanism 38 mounted on a shaft 40 coupled with the servo motor 34 and a single position clutch 42. The single position clutch 42 comprises an input side clutch member 41 fixedly mounted on an input shaft 44 and an output side clutch member 43 fixedly mounted on an output shaft 46.

The clutch members 41 and 43 are adapted to be engageable with each other at a single angular position. The gear 18 is fixedly mounted on the output shaft 46 at the upper end thereof while a worm wheel 48 is fixedly mounted on the input shaft 44 and is in mesh with a worm 50 formed at one end of the shaft 40.

A similar worm wheel 52 is coupled with the input side clutch member 31 of the single position clutch 28. In mesh with the worm wheel 52 is a worm 54 formed at one end of a shaft 56 extending from the gear backlash eliminating mechanism 38.

A detection switch 58 is mounted on a housing (not shown) of the apparatus and is adapted to be turned on by each rotation of the input shaft 44. The switch 58 functions to detect a predetermined angular reference position of the clutch members 31 and 41 and thereby to stop and hold the servo motor 34 at that position. When the switch 58 is turned on the resolver 36 is returned or reset to its starting position.

In the illustrated embodiment, two single position clutches 28 and 42 are employed and therefore the turn table 10 is rotated by two different routes for servo angular positioning operation thereof. The reason for providing two single position clutches as illustrated is to eliminate a possible backlash of the servo drive system 32. And it is important to arrange two single position clutches 28 and 42 oriented to have the same phase. That is, the both clutches 28 and 42 are arranged to engage exactly the same angular position.

The single position clutches 28 and 42 are adapted to be electrically excited and mechanically engaged at single angular position when being excited.

With engagement of the single position clutch 28, the shaft 30 is rotated by the servo motor 34. In order to avoid the rotation of the shaft 30 from being transmitted to the motor 22, the clutch (not shown) in the power transmission 24 is disengaged during the servo drive operation.

Although two single position clutches are employed in the illustrated embodiment, it is of course possible to employ only one single position clutch 42 for the purpose of angularly positioning the turn table 10.

In the illustrated embodiment, gear ratio between the gear 14 and the gears 16 and 18 is set at 7 to 1, therefore when the turn table 10 makes a complete turn, the single position clutches 28 and 42 have seven (7) chances for engagement if they are energized or electrically excited. If the single position clutches 28 and 42 were allowed to engage seven times during one complete turn of the turn table 10, angular orientation or direction of the turn table 10 at each engaging point of the clutches 28 and 42 would be different. To avoid this, a detection switch 60 is provided on the housing adjacent to the spindle 12 for allowing the single position clutches 28 and 42 to engage only once during a complete turn of the turn table 10.

To be specific, the detection switch 60 is adapted to be switched on by a dog 62 mounted on the spindle 12 only once by a complete turn of the spindle 12 and held being switched on within a limited period of time as the turning of the spindle 12 continues. With the detection switch 60 being turned on, "ON" signal therefrom is transmitted through a control unit 64 to the single position clutches 28 and 42 to energize them, allowing the clutches 28 and 42 to engage only at a predetermined angular position E.sub.1 on the turn table 10 as shown in FIG. 2. In FIG. 2 "P" is a reference position mark set on the housing side.

For understanding this clutch engagement sequences, reference is being called upon FIG. 3.

This diagram clearly shows that when the turn table 10 and the switch 60 (actually the dog 62 associated therewith) make a full turn, the clutch members 29 and 43 will make seven turns while the clutch members 31 and 41 are being kept stationary.

When the switch 60 is turned on at E.sub.1 position on the turn table 10, clutch members 29 and 31 and clutch members 41 and 43 are allowed to engage respectively, because only at this position single position clutches 28 and 42 are energized.

Although gear ratio between the gear 14 and the gears 16 and 18 is set at 7 to 1 in the embodiment, other gear ratio can of course be adopted.

Referring now to FIG. 4 showing a block diagram of the control system, the control unit 64 is connected with the motor 22 through a motor drive 66, the switches 58 and 60, the clutches 28 and 42 and the clutch (not shown) in the transmission 24 to control them.

Also connected with the control unit 64 is a numerical control (NC) 68 and signals are transmitted frequently therebetween. Actually these two units are not separated but closely interconnected therebetween. Signals from the resolver 36 are fed into a servo motor drive 70 where those signals are compared with signals from the NC unit 68 and the servo motor drive 70 generates a drive signal for driving the servo motor 34.

The operation of the present invention will now be set forth below.

(1) During a turning operation the turn table 10 is rotated by the motor 22 through the transmission 24.

(2) When the turning operation is finished, the motor 22 is stopped.

(3) Then for angularly positioning the clutch members 31 and 41 at a predetermined angular reference position, the servo motor 34 is rotated.

The rotation of the servo motor 34 is not transmitted to the turn table 10 since the single position clutches 28 and 42 are disengaged at this step.

(4) When the detection switch 58 is turned on by the rotation of the input shaft 44, the servo motor 34 is stopped instantaneously and electrically held at that position.

This also means the clutch members 31 and 41 are exactly positioned at a predetermined angular reference position.

These two steps (3) and (4) are usually carried out during a turning operation without adversely affecting thereto.

For assuring this, the detection switch 60 is arranged and controlled not to be turned on during the turning operation, leaving the single position clutches 28 and 42 disengaged.

(5) After locating the predetermined angular reference position of the clutch members 31 and 41, the motor 22 is rotated for angularly positioning the turn table 10 at a predetermined reference position.

During this operation, only one side clutch members 29 and 43 are rotated because both the single position clutches 28 and 42 remain disengaged and the other side clutch members 31 and 41 are held stationary by the servo motor 34 which is electrically locked during this step.

(6) When the reference position mark E.sub.1 on the turn table 10 becomes in registration with the reference position mark P on the housing, the detection switch 60 is turned on by the dog 62 mounted on the spindle 12 and the motor 22 is stopped thereby. Since the turn table 10 has a relatively large mass, even though the motor 22 is instantaneously stopped at the time when the reference position mark E.sub.1 on the turn table 10 registers with the reference position mark P on the housing (not shown), the turn table 10 is usually rotated a little bit more by its inertia force before it stops completely.

Therefore, usually the reference position E.sub.1 on the turn table 10 angularly overruns the reference position P by an angle of .DELTA..theta. before a stop.

(7) Upon the detection switch 60 being turned on, the single position clutches 28 and 42 are automatically energized or excited and the servo motor 34 is started to rotate. As a result, clutch members 31 and 41 are rotated by the servo motor 34. The rotation of the servo motor 34 is continually detected by the resolver 36 from this starting of the servo motor rotation.

As will be appreciated the predetermined angular reference position of the clutch members 31 and 41 are designed to exactly corresponds to the predetermined angular reference position P of the turn table 10. In other words, the single position clutches 28 and 42 are brought into an exact engagement if the turn table 10 stops with the reference mark E.sub.1 being in exact registration with the reference mark P. If this is the case no servo motor angular positioning operation is necessary. As mentioned above, however, this is not the usual case. Therefore a precise servo motor operation is necessary.

(8) If the reference mark E.sub.1 on the turn table 10 is angularly displaced by .DELTA..theta. from the reference mark P, then the clutch members 29 and 43 are angularly displaced by 7.DELTA..theta. from the predetermined angular reference position of the clutch members 31 and 41 due to the gear ratio between the gear 14 and gears 16 and 18. Accordingly, when the clutch members 31 and 41 are angularly displaced by 7.DELTA..theta. by the servo motor 34, the clutch members 31 and 41 catch up the clutch members 29 and 43, respectively, and therefore the single position clutches 28 and 42 are brought into an engagement.

(9) When the servo motor 34 is further rotated with the single position clutches 28 and 42 being engaged, the turn table 10 is rotated thereby.

At this time as previously mentioned, the rotation of the shaft 30 is not transmitted to the motor 22 since the clutch in the transmission 24 is disengaged by the starting of the servo motor operation of the step (7) above.

(10) When the turn table 10 is rotated to a certain amount, the detection switch 60 is switched off and the servo motor 34 is stopped thereby. With this step (10) the angular positioning of the turn table 10 at a predetermined reference position with the single position clutches being fully engaged has been completed after the turn table 10 stops at any angular position.

(11) Then, in accordance with a stored input signal from the NC, the angular indexing of the turn table 10 is performed by driving the servo motor 34.

As described in greater detail hereinabove, according to the present invention, a servo motor system can be set at a predetermined angular reference position while a turning operation is still being effected on a workpiece. As a result, a required time for angularly positioning the turn table at a predetermined reference position can be shortened dramatically.

Besides, since the exact angular reference position is established at the side of smaller mass, i.e. servo motor side, the whole mechanism can be simplified considerably.

Although the illustrative embodiment of the invention has been described in detail for the purpose of disclosing a practical operative structure whereby the invention may be practised advantageously, it is to be understood that the particular apparatus described is intended to be illustrative only and that the novel characteristics of the invention may be incorporated in other structural forms without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.