Hey.

There are graphic languages for welding, showing anotations on
blueprints, and languages for schematics of piping and ladder diagrams
for hydraulic, computer, pneumatic, and other fluidic logic.

Is there a graphic language for machine tools?

Two approaches, two things to express:

1) Configuration: "Set up the rotary table in the center of the mill
bed and index five slots radially."

2) Work flow: "Rough the spindle on the lathe, grind to fit the
bearing, and slot the key on the shaper."

Recent reading in KSRM (Kinetic Self-Replicating Machines) convinces me
that while it is well accepted that a serial, compact notation for
machine tool configuration and work flow would faciliate
self-replication (my specialty), I have found no such graphic language
or compact notation. We are bogged down in blueprints with unnecessary
detail distracting from the view needed for replication.

Degrees of freedom can be described readily with graphics. There's no
need to draw a blueprint of the whole machine; a lathe is "merely" a
constrained headstock with a powered rotary DOF and essential no
others, while a lathe carriage or mill ways are "merely" independent,
orthogonal, linear degrees of freedom. Graphic communication of the
existence of a stop or index in a DOF might be an arrow to a cross line
for a stop, or an arrow to a point for an index. Things like that. A
lot like the GDT symbols, but not applied to blueprints, merely
standing alone. An alchemy of machine tool potential and operation.

Things like stiffness, mass, and feed or power input might be shown in
a little matrix of low-precision numbers in suitable units.

Some combinatorics are in order, and relevant:

0 DOF: The relationship is rigid. Work in vise.

1 DOF: Must be either but not both of one rotary or one axial DOF. Ram
motion, rotary table, spindle, punch.

2 DOF: Can be either two linear, two rotary, or one linear / one
rotary. Powered spindle stroke on mill or DP, end mill flute grinder
setup, lathe carriage and cross feed, mill table, drill press cross
vise, rotary table on fourth axis tilt fixture used for machining
turbine blades.

3 DOF: Combinatorically, this can all be set down. The full potential
of all 11 coordinate systems appears here, but we'd usually think of
cylindrical, spherical, and Cartesian.

6 DOF: Item is free and unconstrained. Work in transit, and work to
which equipment or jig is fastened to guide other work, perhaps.

Maybe a little XYZ system for linear contraints, and a little cube with
circles on it for rotary contraints, or something like that. Just a
sketch language for hashing out how things are fixed and free, and how
they are powered, fed with screws or rams or a handle, and what cuts,
and what holds or guides the work. Should be applicable to everything
from molding ash quarter round on a table saw or filing the end of a
cut rod square by hand without a vise, to turbine blades and profiles
of titanium hip implants.

Doug Goncz
Replikon Research
Falls Church, VA 22044-0394