Development of post-processor module of 5-axis control NC machine tool with tilting-head for woody furniture

Recently 5-axis control NC machine tool have become a center of attraction in manufacturing of woody furniture. They are expected its high intricate machining performance beyond the capabilities of standard one, however, it has not been used widely yet. One of the most serious problem to prevent them from introducing the NC machine tool is the difficulty in generating NC data by using general post-processor. This paper describes a post-processor which has a simple and easy user interface and can generate NC data for 5-axis control NC machine tool with tilting-head in a short time. The post-processor is made up of two modules ; the first one corrects the value of coordinates in CL data by considering only the tool length which is that from the center of swing to the top of tool; the other generates NC data(X, Y, Z, B, C) from the corrected CL data. By actual machining test it is shown to get the NC data from the normal CL data and run 5-axis control NC machine tool with tilting-head as the computer simulates the motions.