Self-adjusting machine table

This term refers to all systems which automatically position the consoles and suction cups of CNC-machining centres with pod and rail table.

In the early 2000s, several manufacturers began to develop systems for self-setting machine tables. Because the series became ever smaller and the new positioning of the vacuum cups after each program took a lot of time of the work cycle on a workpiece, the efforts on this subject have been increased.

The first systems were only able to position one traverse after each other, so they were comparatively slow. Only after the introduction of dynamic systems where all traverses and suction cups could be moved simultaneously within the limits of collision-freedom, automatic positioning systems were used more often.

Another factor was the increasingly used feed by robots (around the late 2000s), which necessarily required a positioning automatic for clamping systems.

Basic systems

  • The first positioning automatics did not yet have their own drives. Here, the aggregates support of the machine had its own unit, e.g. a pin, which moved the traverses and then eventually the suction cups.
  • The more powerful versions have consoles and suction cups which are moved by their own CNC axes.

Alternative terms

  • Self-setting machine table
  • Automatically setting machine table
  • Automatically positioning machine table
  • Machine table preparing automatic
  • Preparing automatic

Images

Selbst rüstender Maschinentisch
MORBIDELLI, 2007
Positionierung über Mitnehmer
HOMAG, ca. 2001
vollautomatisches Positioniersystem
IMA, 2003