Machine tools, such as lathes and milling machines, are used to manufacture finished products from solid materials. Controls have evolved from manual to computerized, with numerical and computer numerical controls offering precision and automation.
Machine tools are generally used to manufacture finished products from solid materials. Tools, including lathes and milling machines, can be small – and typically for home use – or sized for industrial use. They are usually controlled manually by a human or automatically by a computer. Generic machine tool controls have changed over time, from manual controls such as pulleys and levers to the highly computerized controls used today.
Most early types of machine tools used hand controls, and modern machine tools can still be controlled manually. Depending on the equipment, a machine tool operator might have pulled a lever, spun a flywheel, or used some other type of hand-operated mechanism connected to a complex assembly of pulleys and levers. These machine tool controls would move the work piece or cutting tools to a new location to form the desired product and often required great skill and knowledge to function properly.
Eventually, machine tool controls evolved to include automatic components. An early example of automatic machine tool controls used a water wheel to provide constant power that could be used for various tasks. The subsequent development of steam power made it possible to amplify new machine tool controls using steam mechanisms. Many machine tools eventually made use of steam power, an important factor contributing to the growth of mass production and the industrial revolution. Even then, machine tool controls were mostly manual and still required manipulation by a machine tool operator.
Numerical control was a major breakthrough for precise and automated machine tool controls. Instead of manually turning and activating the controls, a machine tool operator would imprint a number sequence on a card or paper tape. These sequences were fed into the machine tool, which could read the numbers and operate the various parts in the correct sequence. The advantages of numerical control included accuracy, speed and ease of repetition. Many of the concepts developed using numerical control influenced later computer methods.
Computer numerical controls operate the parts of a machine tool via a computer program. The machine tool operator specifies the exact dimensions of the desired product. Once started, the process of forming the finished product is almost fully automatic. Computerized controls of machine tools usually have a high level of accuracy compared to manually operated machine tools. A significant advantage of computer numerical control is that multiple tools or machines can be configured to work together.
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