Robotic machining tool employing an endless machining belt
View Patent ↗A robotic machining tool employing an endless machining belt is disclosed. The tool includes a front pulley and a rear pulley which guide the machining belt, a drive unit which turns the rear pulley, a spindle about which the front pulley is free to rotate, and two wheels which flank the front pulley and are mounted idly on the spindle of the front pulley. The two wheels have an outside diameter greater than that of the front pulley in order to roll over a surface to be machined and in order to define a machining distance between the machining belt guided around the front pulley and the surface to be machined.
1. A robotic machining tool, employing an endless machining belt, comprising:
a front pulley and a rear pulley which guide the machining belt
a drive unit which turns the rear pulley;
a spindle carried by a support guided translationally on a body of the tool, the front pulley rotating idly on the spindle;
a ram device which tensions the belt between the two pulleys;
two wheels which flank the front pulley, the wheels rotating idly on the spindle of the front pulley and each wheel having an outside diameter greater than an outside diameter of the front pulley in order to roll over a surface to be machined and in order to define a machine distance between the machining belt guided around the front pulley and the surface to be machined, the wheels being made of an electrically conducting material, each wheel being connected by a conducting element to an electrical energy source at a first terminal, a second terminal of the electrical energy source is connected to the workpiece;
a control unit which controls a position and path of the tool; and
a detecting unit which detects passage of an electric current between each wheel and the workpiece.
2. The tool as claimed in claim 1 , wherein a support of the front pulley is rotatable about an axis approximately parallel to a longitudinal axis of the ram device.
3. The tool as claimed in claim 1 , comprising three sensors which sense a position of a piston of the ram device.
4. The tool as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the tool is mounted on a robot arm.
5. The tool as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the wheels are removably attached to the spindle of the front pulley.
6. The tool as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the wheels are made of a wear-resistant metallic material.
7. The tool as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the wheels are electrically insulated from each other and from the rest of the tool.