There are many types of springs, such as compression springs, tension springs, and torsion springs. Here, we will only introduce the working principle of the widely used coiling machine.
By using a pair or several pairs of rollers to press the wire and rotate, the wire is pushed to move to the right. The upper and lower diameter rods limit and guide the wire to shape it. The upper and lower diameter rods can move in their respective grooves, and by controlling the position of the upper and lower diameter rods, the size of the spring coil diameter can be controlled. The pitch rod moves vertically to the paper surface, and its function is to form the thread rise angle of the coiled wire. By controlling the position of the pitch rod, the size of the spring pitch can be controlled. When the winding is complete, a cutter is used to cut the wire. The core sleeve serves as a support when the cutter cuts the wire.Through the combined movement of the wire feeding roller, upper and lower diameter rods, pitch rod, and cutter, various shapes of circular compression springs with changing coil diameters and pitches can be coiled. For mechanical coiling machines, since there is only one power source, all actuating rods rely entirely on gears, cams, clutches, and other mechanisms to achieve linkage, resulting in a complex structure that takes time to adjust. Each time a variety is changed, it often requires reshaping the cam, which demands a high technical level from the operator, especially since the adjustment range of the wire feeding length depends on the size of a sector gear, limiting the spring's extended length. When the sector gear returns, a clutch must also be used to disengage the wire feeding roller, which not only increases noise but also reduces feeding accuracy.
To make it suitable for computer control, we have thoroughly transformed the mechanical structure of the coiling machine. First, each moving mechanism is independent, each controlled by a servo motor. For example, the wire feeding mechanism is just a simple gear drive, and the feeding length can be infinite; the upper and lower diameter rods and pitch rod are directly driven by motors connected to ball screws; the cutting mechanism is also just a simple cam drive, which, in addition to general cutting methods, can also match upper and lower cutters for twisting cuts to solve the cutting of springs with large wire diameters and small winding ratios.
When the operator needs to process different types of springs, for the CNC coiling machine, it is only necessary to input the corresponding parameters on the computer. By controlling the program to coordinate the actions of each mechanism, the required springs can be coiled.