A brief overview of Computer Numerical Control “CNC”, a follow on from Numerical Control “NC”
CNC has been around since the 1970’s, this is the start of when computers were first being used to program an operating system on a machine tool, ie a Lathe or a Milling Machine. Prior to this, the operator would manually place a piece of bar into a chuck of a lathe or mount a piece of material on a milling machine, manually operate the handles to move the cross slides of a lathe or the table of a mill.
When drilling a hole into a piece of material in the lathe, the operator would manually put the drill into the chuck, mounted in the tailstock, then bring the tailstock up to the component in order to carry out the drilling of the component . All of these operations are still acceptable for one off components or a modification, however when you are making hundreds off, thousands off, the need for a more efficient way of manufacturing components is required.
CNC was and is the way forward, a program has to be written, the first component made and go through its inspection process and once its passed, it can go into production. You can add other dimensions to the CNC process, automatic tool changers being one of them eliminating the need to stop the machine when a different tool is required.
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