A Flexible Electronic Helical Guide Controller

Abstract In this paper, an Electronic Helical Guide Controller (EHGC) is proposed, for helical gear shaping processes. In most traditional gear shaper machines, the cutter's reciprocating movement is driven by a crank-connecting rod mechanism. Therefore, this study adopts this kind of gear shaper as the machine platform to establish an accurate mathematical model. The control algorithm is embedded in the interpolation module of the CNC system using electronic gearbox techniques to realize special multi-axis linkage control requirements. The crankshaft's angular position is measured and the rotational speed is calculated in each control cycle. The actual position and velocity of the cutter along the Z-axis can be calculated using the geometric relations of the crank-connecting mechanism, and motion in the other axes can be controlled by the electronic gearbox. A special G code with parameters (G83) is also designed and the EHGC control through NC programming is realized in an improvised gear shaping CNC machine. The proposed EHGC is low cost and easy to implement in practice since it does not need a linear grating ruler and a probe on the Z-axis. Furthermore, EHGC allows the flexibility to change a part's helix angle to compensate for distortions caused by heat treatment. Simulations and experiments are performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed EHGC.