The accuracy of a CNC can be explained this way: take a hair off your head and slice it the long way six times. A CNC is able to drill a hole at one end of the worktable, move to the far corner and return to make the same hole again with only a few ten-thousandths of an inch error. These machines work with very small units of measure. No human can control the movements of a machine as precisely as a CNC. All of this processing happens very fast. The ability of CNC machines to move in three (or more) directions at once allows them to create almost any desired pattern or shape. The motors must talk back to the control that, indeed, they have acted correctly to move the machine a given distance. A computer numeric control unit sends position commands to motors. The axes are given simple names such as X, Y and Z (based on the Cartesian Coordinate System).Ī CNC machine must be able to communicate with itself and the machinist to operate. Most CNC machines are able to move in three controlled directions at once. It was a major advance in the ability of machines to reproduce complex part machining steps more accurately without human intervention or variability.Ī CNC machine uses mathematics and coordinate systems to process information of what to move, to where, and how fast. CNC technology was developed in the United States in the 1950's for the United States Air Force by metalworking machine tool builders.
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A CNC machine uses a stream of digital information (code) from a computer to automatically execute a series of machining operations that CNC machines offer to increase productivity and flexibility. CNC stands for Computerized Numerical Control.