THE DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF A NEW FIXTURE TO CONVERT A THREE AXIS CNC MILL TO HAVE FIVE AXIS CAPABILITIES

摘要

Design for a supplemental fixture which provides 4th and 5th axes capabilities to a three axis CNC mill is discussed in this paper. The application of Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF) is shown with this fixture. The fixture is a tilting table which is placed on a milling bed of a three axis CNC mill. The fixture has tilting capabilities about the x and y axes, unlike most of the existing commercially available designs which use a tilt on the x-axis and rotation about the z-axis. A thorough study of related Forward Kinematics is established to calculate the workspace. The fixture is efficient due to its easily moveable lightweight design. The new design improves on the standard x-tilt z-rotation design, because every point on the sheet is still accessible under any allowable x-y rotation.