Other

Electro Scientific Industries, Inc.

Dynamotion Corporation

Cooper Industries, Inc.

Interdyne Systems Inc

Bmc Industries, Inc.

Westwind Air Bearings Limited

Cybernetics Products, Inc.

Wojciech B Kosmowski

John M Rudolph

Richard Eddy

Sabatino Capaldi

Mark Kosmowski

Martin O'Neill

A positioning system for a gantry adapted to move in the horizontal, X-Y plane that utilizes up to 80% less energy to operate than commercial machines, while at the same time decreasing the position settling times by 50%, and achieving this with an 'in position window' of 2-3 microns, (a settling window) beating the current industry in position window of 7-12 microns. It accomplishes this through a novel synergistic overall design that utilizes a much lighter and much stiffer moving mass resulting in the moving components having an increased natural frequency. With this system on any style of PCB drilling machine, the drill bit life is extended in two ways: they do not dull as fast and they do not break as often. This is because the small in position window ensures that as the drill bits plunge into the substrate to be drilled (a PCB board) the drill unit sees very little motion in the horizontal plane thus keeping the bits from wandering upon hole initiation and from experiencing excessive horizontal plane sheer forces (side loads) when starting their plunge into the substrate.

Y axis beam positioning system for a PCB drilling machine

A collet formed as a unitary metal or steel cylinder machined so as to allow three identical weights, joined by three identical flexures to reside, equally spaced about the axis of rotation of the collet. The weight's outer surface is defined by a single length radius having a pair of centers including the collet's axis of rotation. As the spindle revolves, kinetic energy built up in the weights forces the leading edge of the weights outward from the axis of rotation until some portion of the outer face of the weights frictionally engage the inner surface of the spindle shaft. The trailing edge of the mass of the weights deflects inward thus gripping the machine bit tighter.

Centrifugal collet for high speed operation

An improved lightweight z-axis (vertical) drilling apparatus for a commercial PCB drilling systems that uses a pair of unitary z-axis movement guides that integrate the vertical, guided movement of the linear actuator, spindle and pressure foot of a PCB drilling apparatus. The linear actuator is positioned directly above and coupled to the spindle, and the unitary z-axis movement guides situated such that the such that the center of mass of all of the drilling assembly's moving components is collinear with the axis of rotation of the motor and spindle. The combination of these improvements allows for faster drilling times, shorter drilling cycles, less drill bit wander, slower drill bit dulling and less drill bit breakage.

Low mass, low profile, force balanced Z-axis drilling apparatus with improved machine dynamics

A printed circuit board (PCB) drilling apparatus that greatly increases the speed, accuracy and depth of the drilling process as well as increasing the life of the drill bits by decoupling the reactionary forces encountered in the positioning and drilling functions of the apparatus in the x, y and z axes from the components that accomplish the positioning, measuring and drilling of the stacked printed circuit boards. The part of the apparatus that moves and drills as well as the feedback position sensors are mounted to a set of vibration isolation pads that absorb the vibrations that would disturb the feedback sensors. Additionally, the force frame of the apparatus that experiences the reactionary force movements are decoupled from the metrology frame of the apparatus that house the feedback sensors, also increasing the throughput and accuracy.

Drilling apparatus with a decoupled force frame and metrology frame for enhanced positioning

An exemplary embodiment of a high speed spindle for rotating a tool at high rotational rates includes a hollow spindle body and a cylindrical spindle shaft configured for rotation within the spindle body and having a front end and a rear end. The spindle shaft includes a front hollow region and a rear hollow region. A motor is configured to impart rotational drive forces to the spindle shaft during operation. The spindle shaft includes a thrust bearing flange disposed intermediate the front end and the back end of the spindle shaft. A front air bearing and a rear air bearing are configured to radially support the spindle shaft for high speed rotational movement. A thrust air bearing is disposed between the front air bearing and the rear air bearing within the spindle housing and configured to act on the thrust bearing flange of the spindle shaft to constrain axial movement of the spindle shaft within the spindle housing. A collet is disposed within the front hollow region of the spindle shaft. An exemplary embodiment of a collet involves a centrifugal collet of unitary sleeve structure and having a plurality of flexures and weights.

High speed spindle system and centrifugal chuck

A drilling system includes a stationary base table for supporting a work piece under process at a fixed position at a drilling spindle station. A drilling spindle carries and applies rotational force to a drilling tool. A compound overhead guiding system carries the spindle above the work piece under process. The overhead guiding system includes a Y drive system for moving the spindle along a Y axis in relation to the base table, and an X drive system for driving the spindle along an X axis. The guiding system has a lightweight laminated crossbeam structure for carrying the spindle and X axis drive system.

Drilling system with stationary work table

A high throughput drilling system for printed circuit board hole formation. Two spindles are disposed at each spindle station, doubling the number of holes produced in a given time period. Each spindle in connected to an overhead linear drive by a mini slide. A first set of the spindles, one for each spindle station, is driven by a first X axis linear drive. A second set is driven by a second X axis linear drive. The work piece table is elongated to support work pieces for all stations, and is supported by a set of bearing guides, with outrigger bearings coupled to the table by flexure mounts that relieve stress due to differential temperature expansion rates between the work piece table and the base table. High speed spindles are employed to obtain higher productivity, with larger holes routed by router tools, eliminating the need for stocking large drill sizes on the system tool changer.

Hole forming system with ganged spindle set

High throughput hole forming system with multiple spindles per station

A spindle capable of operation at 200,000 revolutions per minute (RPM) with a reciprocating shaft design to minimize the moving mass. The spindle has a ceramic spindle shaft to decrease the moving mass and increase the shaft stiffness for better dynamic stability. The spindle employs a built-in linear motor to provide direct drilling motion to move the shaft along the axis, and a permanent magnet DC brushless motor to rotate the spindle shaft. The linear motor is coupled to the shaft by a combination of an air bearing and a magnetic thrust bearing to reduce the size of the thrust area for better dynamic stability and reduction in stresses of material. A double gripping centrifugal chuck is mounted in the hollow ceramic shaft, and reduces drill bit runout.

High speed drilling spindle with reciprocating shaft and double-gripping centrifugal chuck

High speed drilling spindle with reciprocating ceramic shaft and

Hole forming system with multiple spindles per station

A system and method for optimizing drill coordinates in a multi-layer printed circuit board, to correct for interlayer shift during lamination. A set of test patterns, in the form of a cross formed by two orthogonal conductor lines, are defined at each corner of each layer in the same nominal location. Under ideal conditions, the test patterns of the layers in each corner are lined up one above the other, without any offset. A counter sinking tool is used to cut a conical bore in the location of the test patterns, so that every test pattern cross is interrupted in four places, generating a four segment pattern in each layer. A high resolution camera is placed above the countersunk bore to form a single image of the exposed segment edges of all the test patterns exposed by the bore. The image is analyzed to determine the amount of shift of each layer. If all patterns are perfectly concentric, all crosses are perfectly aligned. By measuring the shift of each pattern from the nominal position, the amount of shift in each layer is determined. The process is repeated for the test patterns at each corner of the board, and the resultant layer shift data is processed to optimize the drilling pattern for the board.

Drill coordinate optimization for multi-layer printed circuit board

An automated tool changer system for a drilling or other type of machine tool system. A gripper apparatus transports tools held in a tool magazine to a tool working unit such as a drill spindle. The tool working unit is supported by an upper support beam above a workpiece-supporting table mounted for movement in an X-Y plane. The magazine is supported by a sliding carriage mounted on the upper support beam, and can be moved upwardly and downwardly to insert and remove tools from the gripper apparatus. The gripper apparatus is supported by the X-Y table, and can be raised or lowered relative to the table during the tool changing operation. The gripper apparatus is provided with two possible grip pressures, and with a sensor for detecting the presence of the tool end at a predetermined grip jaw reference point. The sensor permits the tool to be inserted into the spindle chuck with a predetermined length of tool extending from the chuck.

Method and apparatus for changing tools in an automated machine tool

A high speed drilling system is disclosed for high spped drilling of very small holes in workpieces such as printed circuit boards. The A-Y positioning system includes air bearings to provide lift between the stationary guide beams, the crossbeam and the top table, and further includes a vacuum preloading apparatus for providing a preloading force between the table and the guide beam. The preload force dampens Z axis oscillations which can result in drill bit breakage. The top table is a lightweight honeycomb structure, whose effective rigidity is virtually that of the guide beam due to the vacuum preloading. The system includes pairs of spindles, one a conventional spindle for drilling holes large than about 0.125 inches, and the other a high speed spindle for drilling holes in the range of about 0.003 to 0.125 inches. The high speed spindle includes a stationary spindle body carry the stator of the rotary drive motor. Only the spindle rotor is translated along the Z axis to perform the drilling movements. The rotor is supported within the spindle body by rotary and linear air bearings, and is axially driven by a linear motor. A toolchanger loaded by clips carrying the frilling bits is mounted on the top work table, and minimizes the time required to change drilling tools. The clips minimize the manual handling of the fragile drill bits. A vacuum hold-down apparatus is employed to secure the workpieces to a drilling station.

Growing community of inventors

San Juan Capistrano, CA, United States of America

Wojciech B Kosmowski