GB2090171A - Horizontal boring and/or milling machine with an angle frame - Google Patents

Abstract

The machine has a frame which comprises two horizontal arms 1 and 2 which are arranged at right-angles to one another. A guideway 3 for the headstock (tool support) is arranged in a vertical plane on the inner side of the frame arm 1 with a horizontal guiding direction. A guideway 5 for the workpiece support unit, including a cross-slide 6, a table 8 and a pallet 20, is provided in a vertical plane on the inner side of the arm 2 with a horizontal guiding direction. The cross-slide 6 has a vertical guideway for the table 8 with pallet 20 which carries the workpiece 21. The workpiece support 8; 20 has a vertical clamping surface for the workpiece and the working spindle 4, 1 is disposed at right-angles to the clamping surface of the workpiece support. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Horizontal boring and/or milling machine with an angle frame This invention relates to a horizontal boring and/or milling machine, which is in particular suitable for machining flat, for example plate- or lever-shaped, workpieces.

Flat, for example plate-shaped, workpieces are nowadays most effectively subjected to the machining processes of boring, milling and thread boring on boring and/or milling machines having a working spindle disposed in a vertical manner.

Using the same machine box-shaped workpieces may be economically and most favourably subjected to a first machining, in which the clamping surface required for further machining is produced. Furthermore, such workpieces, in which substantially only one face (front face) has to be machined and/or the machining of the peripheral faces with tools parallel to the axes thereof is possible.

These machines generally have a table as the workpiece support, which table comprises a horizontally disposed work clamping surface.

A substantial drawback of such a machine construction is that the chips produced during machining of the workpiece and a portion of the cooling lubricant on the workpiece accumulate on the machine table and on the horizontal surfaces surrounding the table. As the chips form in a known manner heat pockets which may lead to undesired and uncontrollable deformation of the workpiece and the table and which may lastly have a negative effect on the machining efficiency of the machine, care must be taken to remove these chips completely. The mechanical removal of all machining waste has not been completely solved up to now. Such accumulations must therefore be manually removed, as a result of which the machine must be switched off. This leads to a reduction of rates of utilisation and therefore of the productivity of the machine.

Even in the case of the proposed arrangement of perforations in the grooves of the table it is not possible to achieve a complete removal of the machining waste, in particular the chips, from the table surface without manual intervention or mechanical aids operating accordingly. Both of these involve increased outlay.

In order to avoid this outlay, in connection with the development of machines enabling the machining of four or five sides of box-shaped workpieces in one setting, arrangements have been proposed from the point of view of automatic operation in which the workpiece is constantly or periodically in a position in which the chips and the machining lubricant fall into removal systems under the effect of gravity, these systems being disposed beneath the working area of the machine.

In such case the clamping surface of the workpiece support is constantly in a vertical position or may be brought into such position as a function of the machine process. In this respect machines of such type are provided with four or more controllable axes.

Flat workpieces may be machined on these machines. However, the entire operational ability of these machines is not utilised, i.e. machining is carried out with unacceptably high equipment values. Moreover, these machines generally require additional components or units for clamping the flat parts in the position required with respect to the working spindle for machining, therefore for example for the clamping angle, which leads, as a result of the additional groove involved, to losses in rigidity and therefore to the reduction of the productivity of the machine or the impairment of the machining results and to additional equipment costs.

Consequently, even in the case of these machines the deposition of machining waste on horizontal surfaces and the above-mentioned drawbacks connected with this cannot be completely avoided.

Further drawbacks arise in this respect. If expensive guideway covers are dispensed with, strippers must be provided. These cannot, however, prevent an increased guideway wear in the chip production area. Plastics-coated guides are particularly risky and their advantages, such as economic manufacture or stick/slip-free operation, must be dispensed with in many cases. The machining waste has a considerable heat effect on the guideways.

In contrast to known boring and/or milling machines with vertically disposed working spindles for machining flat workpieces, the automatic removal of the machining waste from the workpiece and its immediate surroundings is to be achieved without the use of additional component assemblies and without increasing the degree of complexity of those component assemblies which are normally present, and in which the requirements with respect to protection of the operator and the machine surroundings are satisfied with few additional protection devices.

The basic construction of the known machines is the cause of the defects mentioned above. It is an object of the invention therefore to provide a boring and/or milling machine with three translatory axes for machining flat workpieces, this machine having a simple basic construction and being equipped with the same component assemblies as known boring and/or milling machines having vertical working spindles, in which the machining waste is removed from the workpiece and its surroundings under the effect of gravity. In this respect the component assemblies in any case required should also serve to a large extent to screen the machine surroundings from the machining waste subjected to centrifugal forces.

Accordingly, the present invention consists in a horizontal boring and/or milling machine, having an angle frame with two arms arranged at rightangles to one another in plan, said frame comprising guideways for a workpiece support unit and a tool support unit, one of these being guided on a cross-slide, the workpiece support unit including a vertical clamping surface, which is parallel to the guideway, and being movable along the inner side of one arm of the angle frame, the tool support unit with a horizontally disposed working spindle being displaceably mounted on the other arm of the angle frame, characterised in that the guideway for the tool support unit is arranged in a vertical plane on the inner side of said other arm with a horizontal guiding direction and the guideway for the workpiece support unit is provided in a vertical plane on the inner side of said one arm with a horizontal guiding direction, that the guideway for the workpiece or tool support carried by the cross-slide is also provided in a vertical plane parallel to one of the guideways on the angle frame, and in that the axis of the working spindle is disposed at right-angles to the clamping surface of the workpiece support.Thus, one guideway, for example for the headstock unit is disposed on the interior of one frame arm and a guideway, for example for the workpiece support unit, is disposed on the interior of the other frame arm, both of these guideways being disposed in vertical planes and one being perpendicularly disposed with respect to the other. Either the headstock or the workpiece support may be moved in two axial directions by means of a crossslide on an angular column of this type. In accordance with the invention the guideway of the cross-slide which directly receives the headstock or the workpiece support also lies in a vertical plane which is parallel to one of the guideways on the angular frame. The axis of the working spindle is perpendicular to the clamping surface of the workpiece support.

As a result of such arrangement of the guideways to be provided with comparatively simple covers and therefore of the component assemblies supporting the tool and the workpiece, the machine does not comprise horizontal surfaces in its working area on to which machining waste may fall. The negative effects connected with the deposits caused in this way are therefore avoided. Devices for catching and conveying the machining waste away may be disposed below the working area, the waste falling into these devices under the effect of gravity.Machining waste centrifuged from the tool under the effect of centrifugal force strikes the vertical surfaces surrounding the working area, which surfaces are formed by the inner sides of the arms of the angular column, the front face of the headstock, an additional protection wall on the side of the machine facing the operator and possibly a further protection wall disposed above the machine area and also fall into the removal device. The working area of the machine is externally screened and the requirements of environmental protection taken into account with comparatively small additional outlay, i.e. mainly for two protection walls, as a result of the construction of the machine in accordance with the invention.

A further advantage of the arrangement of the invention is provided by the possibility of moving the headstock horizontally solely in the Z direction and providing the movements of the workpiece support in the X and Y directions. In this respect the weight compensation device required in the case of vertically movable headstocks, which was also required in the known machines for the machining of flat workpieces, is dispensed with.

The table to be moved vertically does not require weight compensation devices in the case of small machines, as it only supports the relatively light workpieces which are possibly clamped on a pallet which is also comparatively light. A circular table which would drastically increase the total weight of the table unit is not required for the types of workpiece to be machined.

The invention also provides a high degree of economy with respect to materials as a result of the internal force line direction between the component assemblies lying at the level of the guideways Z and Y. In this respect it is possible to divide the frame into an upper frame part embodied for example with a box shape and receiving the force flux related to the method in an optimum manner and a lower frame part only having a supporting function. The upper frame portion may be constructed using light-weight methods and the lower frame portion may be constructed of steel or synthetic concrete for example in accordance with its purely supporting function.

The invention enables the arrangement of the milling spindle in the direct vicinity of the external profile of the machine. As a result of this improved safety conditions are provided for the operator both during setting of the machine and monitoring of the operating process.

Manual exchange of the workpiece is readily possible and an automatic workpiece exchange may be readily carried out with a simple pallet exchanger. In this respect the selection of the type of automatic workpiece exchange is very extensive as a result of the good accessibility of the workpiece table.

In order that the invention may be more readily understood, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which illustrate diagrammatically and by way of example an embodiment thereof, and in which:~ Figure 1 is a top view of a machine in accordance with the invention; and Figure 2 is a front view of the machine of Figure 1.

Machine frame parts 1 and 2 are disposed at right-angles to one another as the arms of an angular (L-shaped in plan) column. The frame part 1 carries a horizontal guideway 3 for the headstock 4 and the frame part 2 carries a horizontal guideway 5 for the cross-slide 6 which receives a table 8 in a vertical guideway 7. A machining waste removal system 9 in disposed below the headstock 4 and above the headstock 4 is disposed a tool magazine 10 on a support column 11 and a magazine support 12, the system 9 and the support 12 lying rigid respectively against the support column 11 and against the frame part 1. A machine control mechanism 13 is provided within the support column 11. The frame parts 1 and 2 are supported by lower frame parts 14 and 15.A hydraulic control cabinet 16 and an electrical control cabinet 1 7 are fastened to the exterior walls of the frame parts 1 and 2 and the lower frame parts 14 and 15. A base plate 18 which acts simultaneously as a conveyor plate, supports the entire machine assembly. Cover plate supports 19 support the cover plates (not shown) which close the machine at the top. In the case of automatic workpiece exchange the table 8 carries a pallet 20 on which is clamped a workpiece 21. A protection wall (not shown) is provided on the operator side of the machine, this wall extending between the support column 11 and the electrical control cabinet 17 and, in accordance with requirements, being provided with an aperture for pallet exchange, with one or more observation ports and with a door enabling operator access to the working area.The main drive 22 of the machine and the feed drives 23, 24, 25 are arranged outside of the working area of the machine.

Thie embodiment of a boring and/or milling machine of the invention for machining flat workpieces enables clamping of the workpiece 21 on the workpiece support 8, 20 in such a way that the machined workpiece surface is disposed in a vertical plane. All the machining waste falls into the collection container of the removal system 9 under the effect of gravity. Machining waste subjected to centrifugal forces strikes the vertical walls, surrounding the working area, of the guideway covering (not shown) on the frame part 1, the upper cover plate (not shown) and the protection wall on the operator's side of the machine (not shown) and falls from there into the collection container of the removal system 9.

In addition to the advantages of the invention described above, the possibility of mounting the hydraulic and electrical control cabinets on the outer sides of the angle frame is particularly advantageous for the compact construction of the machine and leads to a reduction in the space requirement. Despite this, a high degree of accessibility of the cabinets is ensured. The feed drives and the main drive disposed externally of the working area are also very accessible.

In combination with the arrangement of the frame parts on a base plate and the illustrated compact construction the machine forms a selfcontained transport unit enabling economic and space-saving transportation.

Claims (2)

1. A horizontal boring and/or milling machine, having an angle frame with two arms arranged at right-angles to one another in plan, said frame comprising guideways for a workpiece support unit and a tool support unit, one of these being guided on a cross-slide, the workpiece support unit including a vertical clamping surface, which is parallel to the guideway, and being movable along the inner side of one arm of the angle frame, the tool support unit with a horizontally disposed working spindle being displaceably mounted on the other arm of the angle frame, characterised in that the guideway for the tool support unit is arranged in a vertical plane on the inner side of said other arm with a horizontal guiding direction and the guideway for the workpiece support unit is provided in a vertical plane on the inner side of said one arm with a horizontal guiding direction, that the guideway for the workpiece or tool support carried by the cross-slide is also provided in a vertical plane parallel to one of the guideways on the angle frame, and in that the axis of the working spindle is disposed at right-angles to the clamping surface of the workpiece support.

2. A horizontal boring and/or milling machine, substantially as herein described with reference to and as shown in the accompanying drawings.