Wire electric discharge machine

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017193654-A1
Application number	US-201615393407-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Dec 29, 2016
Priority date	Jan 6, 2016
Publication date	Jul 6, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

A wire electric discharge machine according to invention prevents occurrence of failure beforehand and prevents machining stop. This can be effected by acquiring an image of a part using an image information collection unit such as a visual sensor with respect to matters, which requires inspection management of the amount of a wire accumulated in a wire electrode storage box, a remaining amount of a wire of a wire bobbin, a level of a machining liquid of a water reservoir and the like, and issuing warning when it is determined, based on the obtained image information, that the failure is highly likely to occur as the wire deposition amount is close to a limit of the wire electrode storage box, the wire remaining amount is small, or the machining liquid level falls below a set value to deal with the state based on this warning.

First claim

1 . A wire electric discharge machine comprising:
an image information collection unit that acquires a state of a part of the wire electric discharge machine changing the state thereof along with the progress of electric discharge machining and requiring management according to the change, as image information; an image determination unit that determines whether the state of the part is that to issue warning based on the image information collected by the image information collection unit; and a warning transmission unit that transmits a warning state when the image determination unit determines that the part is under the warning state.

2 . The wire electric discharge machine according to claim 1 , wherein
the state of the part is a deposition amount of a wire deposited in a wire electrode storage box, and the image determination unit performs the determination on the warning state depending on an intersection between a boundary line set in advance in the wire electrode storage box and a wire based on the image information.

3 . The wire electric discharge machine according to claim 1 , wherein
the state of the part is an accumulated amount of a wire deposited in a wire electrode storage box, and the image determination unit calculates a ratio of a surface area of a face defined by the wire accumulated in the wire electrode storage box taken from the image information with respect to the surface area of the box, determines whether the ratio deviates from a threshold set in advance, and concludes that it is under or out of the warning state.

4 . The wire electric discharge machine according to claim 1 , wherein
the state of the part is a remaining amount of a wire of a wire bobbin which supplies the wire to an electric discharge machining portion, and the image determination unit performs the determination on the warning state based on the wire remaining amount of the wire bobbin in the image information.

5 . The wire electric discharge machine according to claim 4 , wherein
the determination on the warning state, which is performed by the image determination unit based on the image information is performed such that whether a state is the warning state is determined depending on whether a circle of an image of the wire remaining amount is inside a circle of a boundary line set in advance as a threshold or depending on comparison between a radius of the circle of the image of the wire remaining amount and a radius set in advance as a threshold.

6 . The wire electric discharge machine according to claim 1 , wherein
the state of the part is a level of a machining liquid in a water reservoir which is configured to supply the machining liquid to an electric discharge machining region, the water reservoir is provided with a ball tap whose protruding amount from the water reservoir is changed depending on the water level, and the image determination unit performs the determination on the warning state based on the protruding amount of the ball tap from the water reservoir in the image information.

7 . The wire electric discharge machine according to claim 6 , wherein
the image determination unit performs the determination on the warning state depending on whether there is an intersection between a boundary line set in advance as a threshold and the ball tap protruding from the water reservoir or depending on whether a length of the ball tap protruding from the water reservoir is a length set as a predetermined threshold, or less.

8 . The wire electric discharge machine according to claim 1 , wherein
the state of the part is at least one of an accumulated amount of a wire deposited in a wire electrode storage box, a remaining amount of a wire of a wire bobbin, and a level of a machining liquid in a water reservoir.

9 . The wire electric discharge machine according to claim 1 , wherein
the image information collection unit is mounted on a robot.

Assignees

• Fanuc Corp

Inventors

• Hashimoto Taiju
• Takahashi Shouji

Classifications

• G06T7/001

  using an image reference approach · CPC title

• G06T2207/30164

  Workpiece; Machine component · CPC title

• G08B21/182

  Level alarms, e.g. alarms responsive to variables exceeding a threshold · CPC title

• G06T2207/30232

  Surveillance · CPC title

• B23H1/02

  Electric circuits specially adapted therefor, e.g. power supply, control, preventing short circuits or other abnormal discharges · CPC title