Electronic Cam-Based Control System for Spring Coiling Machines

Springs are an important component of many mechanical products used in mechanical engineering, instrumentation and other industries. Despite the apparent simplicity of manufacturing the springs themselves, modern spring winding machines are complex multi-axis machines capable of winding springs with variable pitch at wire feed speeds up to 500 m/min, as well as performing automatic correction of geometric parameters based on intermediate optical control. Despite the importance of springs for industry, disproportionately fewer research papers have been devoted to control systems for spring-loading machines compared to other types of machine tools. This research attempts to close this gap by developing a universal approach to automating the winding of springs based on the use of electronic cams. The paper proposes a three level software and hardware architecture for spring coiling machine as well as three level hierarchy of electronic cams. It includes the implementation of a lower-level control system based on existing industrial solutions that are not subject to restrictions on dual-use systems, with automatic generation of control programs based on standardized tabular descriptions of springs, with the further possibility of optimizing them. The conducted experimental studies demonstrate that the application of this approach to various types of machine tools allows winding springs up to 5 times faster than on currently used machines based on CNC systems, and the application of the developed algorithm for automatic spring pitch correction has provided up to 1.26 times a reduction in the spread of spring lengths and minimizing the number of defects.

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