The J. L. Wickham Co., Inc.

Ross C Miller

John L Wickham

Jeffrey D Fox

A thread cutting work station includes a carriage assembly mounted on guideways for guided movement under the control of a linear actuator between an initial, home position and a forward position for cutting threads in or upon a workpiece. A collet is connected to a drive motor and carries a tap for thread cutting. In operation, the linear actuator accelerates the carriage assembly from the initial, home position along the guideways towards the workpiece with the rotating tap entering the to-be-threaded bore to initiate the thread cutting operation with the subsequent feed rate controlled by the rotating tap. After completion of the thread cutting step, the drive motor is reversed to withdraw the tap from the threaded bore, and the linear actuator is controlled to rapidly move the carriage assembly to its initial position. The use of a separate linear actuator to advance and retract the carriage assembly allows for the rapid advance and retraction of the tap to and from the to-be-threaded bore to increase overall efficiency.

Thread tapping machine tool

An adaptable machining system includes a plurality of transport units mounted on a machine base with each transport unit carrying a system-standard mounting plate that receives a tool-carrying module. Each tool-carrying module includes a machining tool and associated motor mounted on a system-standard tooling plate which, with the mounting plate of the transport unit, define a system-standard tooling interface. The transport units, under the coordinated control of a system controller, advance their respective tooling modules to and from a work piece to accomplish their machining function. The mounting plate of each transport unit establishes an orthogonal reference system relative to the operating axes of the machine so that the position of each tool carried on a tooling module is known relative to the operating axes of the machine. Tooling change over from one set of tooling modules to another can be accomplished with a minimum of machine down time by removing the prior set of tooling modules and installing a replacement set. Since the system-standard tooling interface pre-establishes an orthogonal reference system for each tooling module, each tooling module can be bench fabricated and set-up to minimize tooling set-up time.

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Millers, MD, United States of America

Ross C Miller