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Application Case of Montronix Tool Monitoring System

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Application Case of Montronix Tool Monitoring System

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Montronix was established in the late 1980s, relying on Germany's rich practical experience in precision manufacturing, with its understanding of cutting tool and various machining processes. It took the lead in developing a series of monitoring systems for machining process due to cutting tool breaking and wear, uneven workpiece materials, temperature changes in the cutting chamber, incorrect electrical parameter settings, etc. The system is highly appreciated by the first customers such as Volkswagen, Daimler Benz and Airbus.

For more than 30 years, Montronix process monitoring systems have been developed to meet the needs of customers in a wide range of industries. The Montronix process monitoring system is a standard feature of many European machine tool manufacturers and is a regular partner of leading German automotive manufacturers, French and Russian aerospace companies.

In recent years, with the implementation of China's "Smart Manufacturing 2025" plan, more and more automated production lines have been put into use, and real-time monitoring of the machining process has become more important and necessary to ensure machining quality as well as reduce cutting tool consumption. Montronix is keeping pace with the transformation and upgrading of China's manufacturing industry and is launching a full range of "SPECTRA" cutting tool monitoring systems for the Chinese market to support Made in China 2025!

This article summarizes a few typical applications of the Montronix "SPECTRA" cutting tool monitoring system on a number of different types of machines and in a variety of complex machining processes.

Montronix "SPECTRA" cutting tool monitoring systems can be flexibly configured to suit different equipment and processes, as well as sensor solutions.

The following application examples will each use a different configuration. This is one of the key features of Montronix cutting tool monitoring systems. We offer cutting tool monitoring systems that are tailored to the specific needs of each machine tool, each process and each customer, ensuring that monitoring quality is the only goal we pursue.

Case 1. Key processes: drilling and tapping
Numerical control system:	Siemens 840 D
Montronix configuration:	3x quad channel Spectra system units + 12 sets of power sensors
Features:	Dedicated machine for multi-station flow work. 3 processes in total, each with 2 stations, 2 independent NC channels per station (double spindle on left and right side simultaneously)

Upper part of machine tool: tapping

Lower parts of machine tool: locating holes, drilling, measuring (hole depth and diameter)

A complete machining cycle is from loading to completion of the workpiece, which is 16 s. Each process takes 4 s to machine two workpieces at the same time, i.e. two workpieces come out every 4 s. The total daily output is approximately 11,800 pieces. Workpiece unloading is fully automated by conveyor belt and laser induction.
It should be mentioned that the machine tool itself has a simple measuring device to ensure the quality of the drilling before tapping. If the drilling diameter is too small or the hole depth is not correct, this can damage the tapping tool or affect the quality of the tapping. So if a problem is detected, it is automatically stopped before tapping is carried out. However, this contact measuring device has many shortcomings and does not monitor the following.

Oversized bore

Excessive depth of hole

Wear of the drilling tool leads to failure of the inner surface of the drilling and the hole tip

Quality of the tapping

This still leads to the production of scrap parts in bulk, even unnoticed.
In order to achieve more accurate process monitoring, the customer requested the addition of a Montronix cutting tool monitoring system.
Monitoring difficulties:

As the raw material is die cast, there is a risk of unevenness in the material, hard grains or looseness.

As the upper unloading is fully automatic with a conveyor belt and laser sensor, it is inevitable that the positioning will be slightly off, resulting in a slightly fluctuating signal.

A normal amount of swarf tends to wind up on the drilling tool during the tapping process. But because it is sporadic, sometimes more or less, it can also cause the signal to fluctuate.
Once the commissioning is completed, the monitoring is very satisfactory and the following problems are promptly identified.

Taps missing tools:

Drilling tool wear:

Case summary：

The machine tool itself has its own measuring device with four contact probes that check the hole depth and diameter after drilling to make sure it passes before tapping. However, even with this device, the wear of the drilling tool is not identified, which leads directly to the breakage of the threaded tool due to prolonged overload cutting, and even to batch scrapping of the workpiece.
The line is automatically unloaded and has a short cycle time. If problems with the cutting tool are not detected in time, 150 scrap parts can be produced in just five minutes. The Montronix cutting tool monitoring system significantly reduced the scrap rate and ensured the productivity and quality of the automatic line.

Case 2. Key process: deep hole drilling machine (hole depth 160mm)
CNC system:	Mazak VCN410A
Montronix configuration:	Dual channel Spectra system unit + acoustic sensor + power sensor
Features:	One system to monitor two machine tools at the same time

This is an uncommon application where two machine tools are monitored by one system at the same time, interfaced with Mazak's Mitsubishi system.

The feasibility of this application is determined by the small size of the two machine tools, their close proximity to each other and the easy wiring of the sensors and the systems in the control cabinet. Both machine tools are single spindle, single channel machining centers with relatively simple machining processes and a small number of workpiece types.

The most critical process in this application is the deep hole drilling machine, which is used to drill holes up to 160 mm deep, as shown in the picture below.

Unlike the normal drilling process, deep hole drilling machines often require more stringent drilling quality and a higher degree of sensitivity in monitoring. This is because if a deep hole drilling machine tool breaks inside the workpiece, not only the cutting tool but also the workpiece is lost. Moreover, the quality of the inner surface of the deep hole cannot be observed by the naked eye. Therefore, Montronix offers the "acoustic sensor + power sensor" as a double insurance to monitor even the smallest abnormalities in the machining process.

The picture above shows the acoustic sensor on the end of the spindle that was added.
(In other applications, especially in the aerospace sector, the requirements for deep hole drilling machines are much higher than those of the automotive industry. Because the value of the aerospace part itself is already very high, a broken tool is a minor issue, a scrap part is a major one. For this reason, the AT100 torque sensor, which is more suitable for detecting deep hole drilling machines with higher sensitivity, is used to monitor the deep hole drilling machine process, which requires higher accuracy.)

Comparison of a worn cutting tool (left and center) and a good cutting tool (right)

The cutting tool monitoring system identifies the signals corresponding to wear and tear

Case summary:

The deep hole drilling machine cutting tool is of high value, valued at over RMB 3,000 each.
With Montronix's cutting tool monitoring system, an alarm can be identified when the cutting tool is worn, so that tool breakage can be avoided and the cutting tool can be used again after correction. This increases cutting tool life and significantly reduces cutting tool costs. It also reduces the scrap rate of workpieces, resulting in a significant return on investment.
Based on the results of the trial, the customer retrofitted all remaining deep hole drilling machines with Montronix cutting tool monitoring systems.

Case 3. Key process: turning
CNC systems:	Siemens 840D
Montronix configuration:	Dual channel Spectra system unit + DDD (machine tool digital drive) data
Features:	One machine tool with two machining stations, i.e. two independent NC channels Lathe's knife tower has a partially powered tool holder.

Turning is a very common process, so I won't go into too much detail here.
Montronix is the originator of process monitoring for turning processes, either by calling up digital drive data from the control system or by using an external sensor to accurately identify cutting tool wear and breaking, even in the case of lathe with powered knife tower (below).

Power knife tower

One of the signal diagrams corresponding to the minor breakage of the cutting tool

One of the signal diagrams corresponding to a severely chipped knife

Case summary:

n order to guarantee the quality of the machining, the customer's factory required a forced tool change according to the counting system. However, the forced tool change did not avoid two results.

1.In order to ensure the quality of machining, counting tool change will retain a certain safety life in the process design, cutting tool is changed down before the actual life, resulting in the waste of cutting tool.

2.If the cutting tool reaches its breaking limit prematurely during machining due to contaminants in the blanks or problems with the quality of the cutting tool itself, it can easily lead to batch scrap if it is not detected in time before it reaches its designed process life (forced count life).

With the addition of the Montronix cutting tool monitoring system, the traditional compulsory counting of tool changes is replaced by automatic reminders for tool changes by the cutting tool monitoring system. This has increased the life expectancy of each tool by at least 20% and has also significantly reduced the scrap rate and increased productivity.

Case 4. Key process: multi-stage drilling tool and slotting disc tool
Numerical control system: Siemens 840 D	Siemens 840 D
Montronix configuration:	2x Quad + 1x Dual Channel Spectra System Unit + DDD Data
Features:	Dedicated machine for multi-station flow work 5 spindles in total, 10 processing stations, 10 independent NC channels With secondary drilling tool, the front end of the cutting tool drills, followed by the second half of the tapping

As shown in the diagram below, there are 10 cutting spindles from 2.1 to 6.2, all of which will be machined on different workpieces at the same time. Each table contains four workpieces, while only two can be machined at the same time. The tables can all be rotated ±180°.

As shown in the figure below, the most critical part in the whole process is the tool (left) that integrates drilling and tapping and the milling disc (right) that pulls the keyway.

Like the application in Case 1, this is also a pipelining conveyor. The difference is that the process of this conveyor is more and more complex, and the degree of automation is much higher than that in Case I. In this process, it is not only automatic loading and unloading, but also automatic change of workpiece model (tubular workpiece, with different length and thickness) according to Jobs. After the workpiece comes out, there will also be a contact measuring device to detect various dimensions of the workpiece, and the error value will be fed back to the machine tool for automatic adjustment (machine tool displacement, feed speed and other parameters). Therefore, any mistake in the process will cause a chain reaction. Therefore, it is necessary to design and install a tool monitoring system to ensure processing safety.

In the face of this high degree of automation, many processes and complex process, in order to avoid false signal, Montronix technicians observed and recorded all the process in the whole process, and finally flexibly adjusted the monitoring strategy to obtain high-quality monitoring effect, which was highly satisfactory by customers.
The figure below shows the signal diagram of multistage drilling. In order to avoid false alarm due to signal fluctuation caused by normal iron filings, as in Case I, only the boundary is removed here.

The following is the signal diagram of disc milling cutter. The process of milling the keyway is to first mill once, and then mill once to increase the width of the slot after a slight displacement. See the figure below under normal conditions

During the observation, the disc milling cutter always alarms from a certain point in time, sometimes the alarm is tool missing, sometimes the alarm is overload, as shown below

Combined with the processing method of disc milling cutter, it is initially suspected that the keyway size is wrong. After checking the size of the workpiece, it is found that the required standard of the keyway is 63.2 ± 0.1mm, and the actual size is 63.53, with a deviation of 0.33mm, which is no longer within the allowable range of out of tolerance. After further inspection, it was found that the spring of the contact measuring device used on the site was loose, which led to inaccurate measurement size, thus leading to wrong measurement feedback. As a result, hundreds of workpieces were unqualified in a short time on the customer's site.

Previous : Masterlink Universal Add-on 4/5 Axis Drive Control System

Next : None

Previous : Masterlink Universal Add-on 4/5 Axis Drive Control System

Next : None

Application Case of Montronix Tool Monitoring System

Views:









Montronix was established in the late 1980s, relying on Germany's rich practical experience in precision manufacturing, with its understanding of cutting tool and various machining processes. It took the lead in developing a series of monitoring systems for machining process due to cutting tool breaking and wear, uneven workpiece materials, temperature changes in the cutting chamber, incorrect electrical parameter settings, etc. The system is highly appreciated by the first customers such as Volkswagen, Daimler Benz and Airbus.

For more than 30 years, Montronix process monitoring systems have been developed to meet the needs of customers in a wide range of industries. The Montronix process monitoring system is a standard feature of many European machine tool manufacturers and is a regular partner of leading German automotive manufacturers, French and Russian aerospace companies.

In recent years, with the implementation of China's "Smart Manufacturing 2025" plan, more and more automated production lines have been put into use, and real-time monitoring of the machining process has become more important and necessary to ensure machining quality as well as reduce cutting tool consumption. Montronix is keeping pace with the transformation and upgrading of China's manufacturing industry and is launching a full range of "SPECTRA" cutting tool monitoring systems for the Chinese market to support Made in China 2025!

This article summarizes a few typical applications of the Montronix "SPECTRA" cutting tool monitoring system on a number of different types of machines and in a variety of complex machining processes.

Montronix "SPECTRA" cutting tool monitoring systems can be flexibly configured to suit different equipment and processes, as well as sensor solutions.

The following application examples will each use a different configuration. This is one of the key features of Montronix cutting tool monitoring systems. We offer cutting tool monitoring systems that are tailored to the specific needs of each machine tool, each process and each customer, ensuring that monitoring quality is the only goal we pursue.

Case 1. Key processes: drilling and tapping
Numerical control system:	Siemens 840 D
Montronix configuration:	3x quad channel Spectra system units + 12 sets of power sensors
Features:	Dedicated machine for multi-station flow work. 3 processes in total, each with 2 stations, 2 independent NC channels per station (double spindle on left and right side simultaneously)

Upper part of machine tool: tapping

Lower parts of machine tool: locating holes, drilling, measuring (hole depth and diameter)

A complete machining cycle is from loading to completion of the workpiece, which is 16 s. Each process takes 4 s to machine two workpieces at the same time, i.e. two workpieces come out every 4 s. The total daily output is approximately 11,800 pieces. Workpiece unloading is fully automated by conveyor belt and laser induction.
It should be mentioned that the machine tool itself has a simple measuring device to ensure the quality of the drilling before tapping. If the drilling diameter is too small or the hole depth is not correct, this can damage the tapping tool or affect the quality of the tapping. So if a problem is detected, it is automatically stopped before tapping is carried out. However, this contact measuring device has many shortcomings and does not monitor the following.

Oversized bore

Excessive depth of hole

Wear of the drilling tool leads to failure of the inner surface of the drilling and the hole tip

Quality of the tapping

This still leads to the production of scrap parts in bulk, even unnoticed.
In order to achieve more accurate process monitoring, the customer requested the addition of a Montronix cutting tool monitoring system.
Monitoring difficulties:

As the raw material is die cast, there is a risk of unevenness in the material, hard grains or looseness.

As the upper unloading is fully automatic with a conveyor belt and laser sensor, it is inevitable that the positioning will be slightly off, resulting in a slightly fluctuating signal.

A normal amount of swarf tends to wind up on the drilling tool during the tapping process. But because it is sporadic, sometimes more or less, it can also cause the signal to fluctuate.
Once the commissioning is completed, the monitoring is very satisfactory and the following problems are promptly identified.

Taps missing tools:

Drilling tool wear:

Case summary：

The machine tool itself has its own measuring device with four contact probes that check the hole depth and diameter after drilling to make sure it passes before tapping. However, even with this device, the wear of the drilling tool is not identified, which leads directly to the breakage of the threaded tool due to prolonged overload cutting, and even to batch scrapping of the workpiece.
The line is automatically unloaded and has a short cycle time. If problems with the cutting tool are not detected in time, 150 scrap parts can be produced in just five minutes. The Montronix cutting tool monitoring system significantly reduced the scrap rate and ensured the productivity and quality of the automatic line.

Case 2. Key process: deep hole drilling machine (hole depth 160mm)
CNC system:	Mazak VCN410A
Montronix configuration:	Dual channel Spectra system unit + acoustic sensor + power sensor
Features:	One system to monitor two machine tools at the same time

This is an uncommon application where two machine tools are monitored by one system at the same time, interfaced with Mazak's Mitsubishi system.

The feasibility of this application is determined by the small size of the two machine tools, their close proximity to each other and the easy wiring of the sensors and the systems in the control cabinet. Both machine tools are single spindle, single channel machining centers with relatively simple machining processes and a small number of workpiece types.

The most critical process in this application is the deep hole drilling machine, which is used to drill holes up to 160 mm deep, as shown in the picture below.

Unlike the normal drilling process, deep hole drilling machines often require more stringent drilling quality and a higher degree of sensitivity in monitoring. This is because if a deep hole drilling machine tool breaks inside the workpiece, not only the cutting tool but also the workpiece is lost. Moreover, the quality of the inner surface of the deep hole cannot be observed by the naked eye. Therefore, Montronix offers the "acoustic sensor + power sensor" as a double insurance to monitor even the smallest abnormalities in the machining process.

The picture above shows the acoustic sensor on the end of the spindle that was added.
(In other applications, especially in the aerospace sector, the requirements for deep hole drilling machines are much higher than those of the automotive industry. Because the value of the aerospace part itself is already very high, a broken tool is a minor issue, a scrap part is a major one. For this reason, the AT100 torque sensor, which is more suitable for detecting deep hole drilling machines with higher sensitivity, is used to monitor the deep hole drilling machine process, which requires higher accuracy.)

Comparison of a worn cutting tool (left and center) and a good cutting tool (right)

The cutting tool monitoring system identifies the signals corresponding to wear and tear

Case summary:

The deep hole drilling machine cutting tool is of high value, valued at over RMB 3,000 each.
With Montronix's cutting tool monitoring system, an alarm can be identified when the cutting tool is worn, so that tool breakage can be avoided and the cutting tool can be used again after correction. This increases cutting tool life and significantly reduces cutting tool costs. It also reduces the scrap rate of workpieces, resulting in a significant return on investment.
Based on the results of the trial, the customer retrofitted all remaining deep hole drilling machines with Montronix cutting tool monitoring systems.

Case 3. Key process: turning
CNC systems:	Siemens 840D
Montronix configuration:	Dual channel Spectra system unit + DDD (machine tool digital drive) data
Features:	One machine tool with two machining stations, i.e. two independent NC channels Lathe's knife tower has a partially powered tool holder.

Turning is a very common process, so I won't go into too much detail here.
Montronix is the originator of process monitoring for turning processes, either by calling up digital drive data from the control system or by using an external sensor to accurately identify cutting tool wear and breaking, even in the case of lathe with powered knife tower (below).

Power knife tower

One of the signal diagrams corresponding to the minor breakage of the cutting tool

One of the signal diagrams corresponding to a severely chipped knife

Case summary:

n order to guarantee the quality of the machining, the customer's factory required a forced tool change according to the counting system. However, the forced tool change did not avoid two results.

1.In order to ensure the quality of machining, counting tool change will retain a certain safety life in the process design, cutting tool is changed down before the actual life, resulting in the waste of cutting tool.

2.If the cutting tool reaches its breaking limit prematurely during machining due to contaminants in the blanks or problems with the quality of the cutting tool itself, it can easily lead to batch scrap if it is not detected in time before it reaches its designed process life (forced count life).

With the addition of the Montronix cutting tool monitoring system, the traditional compulsory counting of tool changes is replaced by automatic reminders for tool changes by the cutting tool monitoring system. This has increased the life expectancy of each tool by at least 20% and has also significantly reduced the scrap rate and increased productivity.

Case 4. Key process: multi-stage drilling tool and slotting disc tool
Numerical control system: Siemens 840 D	Siemens 840 D
Montronix configuration:	2x Quad + 1x Dual Channel Spectra System Unit + DDD Data
Features:	Dedicated machine for multi-station flow work 5 spindles in total, 10 processing stations, 10 independent NC channels With secondary drilling tool, the front end of the cutting tool drills, followed by the second half of the tapping

As shown in the diagram below, there are 10 cutting spindles from 2.1 to 6.2, all of which will be machined on different workpieces at the same time. Each table contains four workpieces, while only two can be machined at the same time. The tables can all be rotated ±180°.

As shown in the figure below, the most critical part in the whole process is the tool (left) that integrates drilling and tapping and the milling disc (right) that pulls the keyway.

Like the application in Case 1, this is also a pipelining conveyor. The difference is that the process of this conveyor is more and more complex, and the degree of automation is much higher than that in Case I. In this process, it is not only automatic loading and unloading, but also automatic change of workpiece model (tubular workpiece, with different length and thickness) according to Jobs. After the workpiece comes out, there will also be a contact measuring device to detect various dimensions of the workpiece, and the error value will be fed back to the machine tool for automatic adjustment (machine tool displacement, feed speed and other parameters). Therefore, any mistake in the process will cause a chain reaction. Therefore, it is necessary to design and install a tool monitoring system to ensure processing safety.

In the face of this high degree of automation, many processes and complex process, in order to avoid false signal, Montronix technicians observed and recorded all the process in the whole process, and finally flexibly adjusted the monitoring strategy to obtain high-quality monitoring effect, which was highly satisfactory by customers.
The figure below shows the signal diagram of multistage drilling. In order to avoid false alarm due to signal fluctuation caused by normal iron filings, as in Case I, only the boundary is removed here.

The following is the signal diagram of disc milling cutter. The process of milling the keyway is to first mill once, and then mill once to increase the width of the slot after a slight displacement. See the figure below under normal conditions

During the observation, the disc milling cutter always alarms from a certain point in time, sometimes the alarm is tool missing, sometimes the alarm is overload, as shown below

Combined with the processing method of disc milling cutter, it is initially suspected that the keyway size is wrong. After checking the size of the workpiece, it is found that the required standard of the keyway is 63.2 ± 0.1mm, and the actual size is 63.53, with a deviation of 0.33mm, which is no longer within the allowable range of out of tolerance. After further inspection, it was found that the spring of the contact measuring device used on the site was loose, which led to inaccurate measurement size, thus leading to wrong measurement feedback. As a result, hundreds of workpieces were unqualified in a short time on the customer's site.

Previous : Masterlink Universal Add-on 4/5 Axis Drive Control System

Next : None

Previous : Masterlink Universal Add-on 4/5 Axis Drive Control System

Next : None