The Beginnings Of Cnc Engineering

Machines used as tools became automated and the history of automation in precision machining begins when machines that could control tools were developed as it were from the cuckoo clock to the computerized numerical control machining. Producing a product using manually built machines was the early development of computerized numerical control machines that could be abstractly programmed to produce a machine that could produce a product.

In the 1800′s, inventors Thomas Blanchard and Christopher Miner Spencer developed lathes, which were an innovation from the cam technology that had been used in music boxes and cuckoo clocks. The work of Jacquard Loom and Charles Babbage in mechanical computers being abstractly programmed was a reality in the 1800′s but their work was not picked up by the machine tool industry.

Automation was industrialized with the development of tools that could copy templates using a stylus through the use of hydraulics like the Pratt and Whitney “Keller Machine”. In the 1950′s General Motors used a method to capture the manual movements of a machinist and re-play those movements on command.

The degree of reliability in the reading by the machine of the abstract code was a problem with developing a computerized numerical control machine. The problem was solved with the invention of the servo that gave right measurement information.

When one servo’s performance was repeated by a remote servo a Selsyn was made. The products of a Selsyn could be read by various mechanical and electrical systems to ensure that the right information had been transferred.

While working for General Electric, Ernst F. W. Alexanderson, a Swedish immigrant, suggested that Selsyn be used for machining control. Using a mechanical computer, Alexanderson was able to run big motors on little force, and General Electric used this invention in their gun laying system for United States Navy Ships.

Numerical control machines are credited to the work of John T. Parsons in 1942 in his efforts to make a helicopter propeller. Parsons turned to MIT in an effort to get their suggestions on his punch card input machine, and was surprised by their taking his invention and leaving him out of production.

Later, John Runyon made punch tapes on the Whirlwind using computer control. The Air Force in June 1956, proposed a uniform language for “programming” introducing computerized numerical control.