Machines Numerically Controlled

Before the development of CAD, the manufacturing

world relied on tools controlled by numbers and letters to produce complex shapes accurately and repeatably. During the 1950s, these numerically controlled (NC) machines used the existing technology of paper tapes with regularly spaced holes to feed numbers into controller machines that machine tools. were wired with working motors. The electromechanical nature of the controllers allowed for the easy incorporation of digital technologies as they were developed.In late 1960s, NC machining centres were commercially available, incorporating a variety of machining processes and automatic tool changing. Such tools were capable of doing work on multiple surfaces of a work piece, moving the work piece to positions programmed in advance and using a variety of tools — all automatically. What is more, the same work could be done over and over again with extraordinary precision and a very little additional human input. NC tools immediately raised automation of manufacturing to a new level once feedback loops were incorporated. What finally made NC technology enormously successful was the development of the universal NC programming language called automatically programmed tools (APT).