Control of Panel Line Gantry

This is the main function of PLCM, used to produce control information of a gantry for cutting and blasting/marking of assembly parts. It has the following main characteristics.

• Support for burning, both one torch burners for vertical cutting of holes and multiple torch burners for burning of complicated bevels.

• Automatic translation of user defined bevel types into burner selection and control.

• Support for blasting.

• Support for normal marking.

• Support for labelling of text and symbols.

• Support for gantry equipped with one or two tool "wagons". In the latter case the use of the two sets of tools are optimized (by parallel operation) to minimize processing time.

• Semi-automatic selection of orientation of the assembly part in the panel line depending on orientation of main stiffeners (one of the two possible orientations suggested).

• Automatic to semi-automatic generation of burning loops and selection of auxiliary functions.

• Semi-automatic generation of workshop drawing for the panel line.

• Addition of special reference marks for mounting of the big stiffeners in station 4.

The operation sequence supposed in PLCM may to some extent be adapted to the operation sequences in certain installations. Therefore, minor modifications may have to be implemented for each installation.

Result of the function is, in addition to the workshop drawing, a file containing all necessary information for the numerical control of the gantry.

The information is available in basically two different formats:

1. A CL-file in a general XML-format, output as an ordinary ASCII file.

2. A CL-file in a general so called generic format, output as an ordinary ASCII file.

This will allow any customer to develop a post processor of his own. (However, these formats currently do not cover all the control information output from the assembly nesting).

The generic format is described in a separate document, Generic Data for 2-axis and 3-axis Post-processing (preliminary version).