Nuvatec, Inc.

Carson D Cash, Iii

William H Slavik

Michael J McGowan

A control method and apparatus for a metal-forming machine such as a cold heading machine are described. The described method and apparatus monitor machine operation during production and permit relatively large deviations from a prescribed norm over a short term without shutting down the machine, while ensuring longer term compliance to relatively small tolerances from the norm. The described controller first determines an average of a measured parameter such as the hit energy applied to a group of workpieces resulting in acceptable metal-forming during a training mode and then stores this average as a target value. The controller then establishes a set of tolerance windows to be used to control forming operations in a production mode. In production, the controller repeatedly measures the machine parameter and then compares selected averages of the measured parameter with the target value and the respective tolerance window, and indicates out-of-tolerance condition whenever one of the selected average falls outside the respective window. The tolerance windows are selected such that short term averages or single values of the measured parameter must deviate from the target values by larger amounts than long term averages before the controller signals an out-of-tolerance condition. For example, the described controller operates to interrupt machine operation when a single measured value of hit energy deviates by more than 16% from the learned target value, when a group of 4 measured values of hit energy deviates by more than 8%, when a group of 16 measured values of hit energy deviates by more than 4%, or when a group of 64 measured values of hit energy deviates by more than 1%. The disclosed controller also signals when the measured parameter is nearing an out-of-tolerance condition, and it acts to change the target value gradually during a warmup period of machine operation in order to reduce the number of unnecessary interruptions of machine operation.

Growing community of inventors

Brookfield, IL, United States of America

Carson D Cash, Iii