Reliability Oriented Performance Testing System of Chain-type Magazine and ATC

Tool magazine and ATC (Automatic Tool Changer) are crucial functional components and the weak links of the fault locations of the CNC machining center. So the study on reliability of magazine and ATC is important to improve the reliability of machining center. The failure of magazine and ATC is a gradual progress from quantitative to qualitative, with the changes of some performance parameters (such as vibration, noise, position accuracy, etc.). To provide a test basis for the reliability growth technology based on performance parameters changing, a set of reliability oriented performance test system of chain-type magazine and ATC is developed. The testing of performance parameters such as the kinematical characteristic of manipulator, the magazine positioning error, vibration on the tool oriented part and noise is achieved. Then the developed reliability oriented performance test system of chain-type magazine and ATC is used to estimate the performance of chain- type magazine and ATC produced by Dalian Golden CNC Group Corp. The experimental data proves its feasibility. Under reasonable test time interval and performance parameters changing thresholds, this system will alert the operators to do some repairing in time when performance parameters degrade badly to prevent the failures effectively so as to avoid or decrease losses, then the reliability of magazine and ATC can be improved.