Nuvatec, Inc.

Michael J McGowan

William H Slavik

William P Carlson

John Victor Moravec

Carson D Cash, Iii

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.

Material forming machine controller

A teaching device includes a reading station provided with six on-off switches for automatically sensing a text key encoded as a pattern of punched holes in a text book. The teaching device automatically generates an answer key from the text key by means of a pseudo-random number generator which is run using the text key as a seed. The text book includes a number of multiple choice questions in which the correct answer corresponds to the answer designated in the answer key.

Teaching device

An automatic note analyzer is disclosed which automatically generates and displays a note signal indicative of the musical note corresponding to an input signal. The disclosed analyzer operates to measure the period of the input signal on a regular basis. According to one aspect of the invention, the measured period is compared with a predetermined window representative of the expected value of the measured period. Measured periods which do not fall within the predetermined window are rejected. According to a second feature, measured signals representative of the period of the input signal are averaged in order to increase the stability of the analyzer. The disclosed analyzer operates in two modes: an absolute mode, and a transposer mode. In the absolute mode the displayed note value is determined with reference to an absolute pitch. In the transposer mode, the displayed note value is determined with reference to a relative pitch which can be readily adjusted as needed.

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Lombard, IL, United States of America

Michael J McGowan