Tooth by Tooth – Circular Saw Sharpening Machine with ProSyCon IPC-based Controller

Berlin - The following story shows what the Circular Saw Service Centre is all about. A carpenter is having a very hard time sawing through a beam. An observer calls: “Hey, carpenter, you gotta sharpen that saw!” “No time,” replies the carpenter, “I’ve got to saw the beam.” Of course in real life no carpenter can afford to be so short-sighted.

Like carpenters, many machinebuilding and structural steel engineering firms depend on sharp sawblades in their manufacturing systems. Rather than waiting for the travelling knife-grinder, industrial saws are maintained by service firms with the appropriate equipment. One of the machines used for this purpose is the Circular Saw Service Centre from Loroch GmbH, which sharpens special metal-cutting sawblades fully automatically. The machines are equipped with IPC-based controllers.

KSC sharpening machines sharpen up to 80 sawblades from the magazine in a single run, even if the blades vary in diameter (20 to 710 mm), tooth geometry, number of teeth and bores. Machining with the CBN deep grinding method takes about 15 minutes per blade. A robot arm on the machine takes a blade from the magazine and swivels round to place it on the grinding unit, where it is fixed into place.

Staying Sharp

The rotating wheel approaches slowly, until a sensor registers contact with the tip or flank of a tooth. The controller stores the position, retracts the wheel a little and turns the blade by a set number of degrees. The measuring procedure is repeated in the new position. [more]