Gantry drive

A gantry drive is the name for a special electromechanical movement system of a geometric axis of a machine tool , in which two separate feed motors move a common drive axis . The two motors are operated angle-synchronously via special functions of the CNC control and the converter system. As a result, the gantry drive behaves as if it only had one feed motor. With a gantry drive, a mechanical shaft connection between the two portal sides is superfluous. Both drive trains usually have their own position measuring system, the actual position is determined by the control by calculating this.

Gantry drives are mainly used in portal milling machines with a moving portal ( gantry design ), in which the columns supporting the portal can be moved absolutely synchronously. The purpose of this mechanically and statically rather unfavorable design is to save considerable space compared to a design with a clamping table that can be moved over a comparable distance in the same geometrical axis. Accordingly, this design is regularly used in machines that have been designed for processing particularly long workpieces .

literature

• Reimund Neugebauer (Ed.): Machine tools. Structure, function and use of cutting and removing machine tools. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2012, ISBN 978-3-642-30077-6 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-30078-3 , p. 124 ff.