Appeal No. 2002-1050
Application 09/425,505
Y-drive motor 36 for moving the cutting blade 20 along a desired
cutting path P, and a computer/controller 12 for controlling the
operation of the machine.
Gerber recognizes that there are special circumstances or
conditions that render the fundamental commands used by the
controller to translate the cutting blade inadequate to produce
high quality, high accuracy cutting. As described in the
reference,
FIG. 2 illustrates a cutting blade 20 from the
rear as it advances through the layup L of sheet
material spread on the bed 24 comprised of bristles.
Forces F generated between the advancing cutting blade
and material are shown operating on the left side of
the blade to produce an unbalanced lateral loading or
force which bends and deflects the blade to the
position illustrated in phantom. It will be readily
apparent that the lower plies of the sheet material cut
by the blade when it is deflected will have a slightly
different shape or contour than the upper plies due to
the blade bending. Obviously, such bending and its
results are undesirable when pattern pieces and other
products should be cut with high accuracy.
The forces F generated on the cutting blade as it
advances can be attributed to a number of factors, such
as the layup, the strength of the cloth fibers, the
angle of the fibers and cutting path, the sharpening
angle of the blade, the sharpness of the blade and
others [column 4, line 62, through column 5, line 12].
To deal this deflection problem, Gerber advances the
following solution:
[i]nitially, cutting tests are performed on the
sheet material with the cutting machine by moving the
blade, and sheet material relative to one another in
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