Method of Power Control in CNC Hot Wire Machines Inventors

Category-

Robotics & Automation

Industry Classification:

NIC (2008)- 28292- Manufacture of machinery for working soft rubber or plastics or for the
manufacture of products of these materials
NAICS (2022)- 335314- Relay and Industrial Control Manufacturing; 326140– Polystyrene Foam Product Manufacturing

Applications– Precision manufacturing, Expanded Polystyrene foam cutting

Market Drivers-

Foam Cutting Machines Market is valued at USD 166.15 Billion in 2023 and is expected to reach USD 224.85 Billion by the end of 2030 with a CAGR of 6.59%.

Hot wire machines with CNC Controller cut Expanded polystyrene (EPS) by melting the material while moving through the material.
The heat produced by the hot wire needs to be controlled
If the heat is more, then accuracy of the final object will reduce because of over melting. Conversely, with low heat bowing of wire occurs while cutting.
There is need for an intelligent system to control the power to the heating element as per the feed rate of cutting to achieve precise shapes and curvatures.

The numerically controlled hot wire cutting machine comprises a computing machine, a control unit, a machine tool, and a power source with constant and dynamic supply modes for controlling power.
The electronic circuit of the power control unit is configured to receive a variable spindle PWM signal from the controller and amplify the received PWM signal based on the feed rate of cutting.
The hot wire heating element is configured to receive the amplified power from the electronic circuit to increase, decrease or maintain the temperature
The G-code was generated in a computer aided manufacturing (CAM) software and fed to the Arduino controller using CNC software.

The method achieves effective cutting at the sharp corners and difficult curvatures achieving greater accuracy compared to conventional hot wire machines
An intelligent system has been developed to control the power to the heating element of a hot wire machine which enables precise manufacturing reducing scope of human error.
The dynamic mode essentially ensures that the amount of the power supplied is consistent even when the machine is accelerating or stopped.
The power only turns on when the machine moves. This generally makes the hot wire safer to operate.

Prof. Sathyan Subbiah

Department of Mechanical Engineering

TRL – 4

Technology validated in lab scale.

Technology Transfer