Honing, lapping or polishing machine

Claim 1

Honing, lapping or polishing machine comprising: upper and lower working discs, at least one of said discs having an abrasive means for honing, lapping, or polishing the surface of a workpiece; an outer gear member including an annular row of teeth; a centrally arranged inner gear member including an annular row of teeth; a plurality of workpiece holder discs disposed between said working discs and including recesses for receiving workpieces, said discs including teeth at their outer peripheries in driving engagement with the teeth of the outer and inner gear members in a planetary gear type fashion; the number of teeth of the outer gear member being an integral multiple of the number of teeth on each workpiece holder disc; loading and unloading means for loading and unloading workpieces into and from the workpiece holder discs; drive means for rotating said inner gear member to drive said workpiece holder discs in an orbital path, said drive means including a drive motor, a brake means, and a control circuit for controlling operation of said drive motor and brake means, the control circuit including means for providing a stop signal to deactivate said drive motor and activate said brake means; and position detecting means for detecting when one of the workpiece holder discs is in a predetermined stop position, the detecting means including a first position detector for detecting when one of the discs reaches a first predetermined position in said path, a second position detector, and positioning means responsive to detection by said first position detector of the arrival of one of said discs at said first position for reciprocally moving said second position detector between a retracted, rest position and an extended, sensing position in the path of the discs, said second position detector in said sensing position comprising means for detecting when said one of the workpiece holder discs reaches said predetermined stop position subsequent to said first position to provide a position signal to said control circuit for producing said stop signal when said one of the discs reaches said predetermined stop position relative to said position detector.

Claim 12

A method of positioning one of a series of workpiece holding discs of a honing, lapping or polishing machine in a predetermined loading and unloading position relative to loading and unloading device, the method comprising the steps of: driving a series of equally spaced workpiece holder discs in an orbital path; detecting when one of the workpiece holder discs reaches a first predetermined position in said path; displacing a position detector from a retracted rest position outside of the orbital path of the workpiece holder discs into an extended sensing position in the path of the discs in response to detection of the arrival of one of said discs at said first position; detecting when said one of the workpiece holder discs reaches a second predetermined position relative to the position detector subsequent to said first position, said second predetermined relative position corresponding to a predetermined loading and unloading position of at least one of said workpiece holder discs relative to a loading and unloading device; providing a stop signal to stop the workpiece holder discs when said second predetermined relative position is reached.

Claim 13

A method of positioning one of a series of workpiece holding discs of a honing, lapping or polishing machine in a predetermined loading and unloading position relative to loading and unloading device, the method comprising the steps of: driving a series of equally spaced workpiece holder discs in an orbital path; detecting when one of the workpiece holder discs reaches a first predetermined position in said path; displacing a position detector from a retracted rest position outside of the orbital path of the workpiece holder discs into an extended sensing position in the path of the discs in response to detection of the arrival of one of said discs at said first position; detecting when said one of the workpiece holder discs reaches a second predetermined position relative to the position detector subsequent to said first position, said second predetermined relative position corresponding to a predetermined loading and unloading position of at least one of said workpiece holder discs relative to a loading and unloading device; providing a stop signal to stop the workpiece holder discs when said second predetermined relative position is reached.