Caron Engineering recently developed a new product to monitor vibration levels anywhere on a CNC machine. This product, DTect-IT, is useful for measuring excessive bar feeder vibration on lathes. "Caron Engineering, a company focused on developing unique hardware and software solutions for monitoring and controlling CNC machines, recognized that detecting bar feeder vibration was an area in machine monitoring that required attention," said a company spokesperson.
DTect-IT is a software application that communicates with a custom USB sensor. The sensor can easily attach to the machine using the included industrial magnet base or can be bolted in place. DTect-IT can run standalone or be programmed to communicate with the CNC control.
By placing a vibration sensor somewhere near the main spindle on the bar feeder, the vibration level in the bar can be detected. The vibration and alarm levels can be sent to macro variables in the CNC control to be interrogated. If vibration is excessive, the spindle RPM can be reduced until the vibration level is acceptable to make good parts. If the RPM has to be reduced too much, and parts cannot be cut, an alarm can be generated to inform an operator to remove the bar.
The results are displayed in real-time, so the operator can immediately detect if vibration has exceeded an acceptable limit. With early detection, the operator can avoid running an entire bent bar stock through the machine, resulting in a batch of bad parts. Excessive vibration from the bar feeder can also have detrimental effects to the machine itself, if undetected.
Although DTect-IT was developed to detect bar feeder vibration, it can effectively detect vibration irregularities anywhere on a CNC machine tool or fixture. In addition to vibration monitoring, DTect-IT can monitor small amounts of force, or anything with a 0-10 VDC signal through connection of an analog sensor. DTect-IT has a built-in audio sensor that can record from any audio device on the DTect-IT Windows PC.
In addition to monitoring with set limits, DTect-IT is capable of running spindle bearing analysis and detecting machine faults (i.e. machine crash, overheating, etc.) DTect-IT also has a Data Collection mode to collect raw data from any DTect-IT sensor, up to 62,500 data points per second. All data is automatically saved to a file for future analysis.
For more information contact:
Caron Engineering, Inc.
1931 Sanford Rd.
Wells, ME 04090
207-646-6071
www.caroneng.com