The development of CNC lathes
To meet the needs of the global manufacturing industry, networked CNC systems are an inevitable development direction. The network can optimize the allocation of resources in the world. The networking of CNC systems began with the networking of CNC systems within enterprises. CNC systems communicate with each other through internal local area networks, and then connect to the outside of the enterprise through the Internet. This is known as Inter net/Internet technology. This connects almost all CNC systems in the world and promotes the optimal allocation of world resources. With the improvement of processing efficiency and the significant increase in material demand, the working time of CNC systems is getting longer and longer, which inevitably requires CNC systems to ensure their stability for a long time in order to produce qualified products. This puts forward high reliability requirements for CNC systems. For unmanned factories that work two shifts a day, if continuous normal operation is required within 16 hours with a failure free rate of over 99%, the average time between failures of CNC lathes must be greater than 3000 hours. This requires that the average time between failures for CNC configuration, spindle, and servo drive must be over 100000 hours. The FANUC system in Japan was able to meet this high reliability requirement as early as the late 1980s and is now developing towards higher reliability. In the production process, it is often found that a part itself is not processed by the cutting tool for a long time, and the time for workers to clamp is sometimes longer than the processing time. The large amount of ineffective time during the part processing is detrimental to production, so modern factories with high automation generally have CNC lathes equipped with systems such as workpiece handling, automatic loading and unloading, and automatic tool changing, which can minimize these ineffective times as much as possible. The process of integrating multiple systems with different functions into a CNC lathe is called the loading of the CNC system.