Analysis and time calculations of NC files : Time calculation of Nailing Bridge machine movements

Sammanfattning: Randek is a company that develops machines. The machines are used to build prefabricated houses. They have developed a CNC machine called Nailing Bridge that creates house walls. One of their issues is that they must predict the time it takes to build a wall because their customers need to know how long it takes to deliver their house. Our project solves this problem by making a program that calculates the time it takes to build a wall on the Nailing Bridge with help from NC files (Numerical Control files) consisting of G-code. One NC file contains the machine's operations, such as sawing, nailing, and routing. The goal was to develop a program with a maximum margin of error of 3% from reality. The machine was tested to measure the time of different operations to develop the program, and the NC files were analysed. Calculations for the jerk, acceleration, deceleration, and velocity of the CNC machine were considered to predict the time of the movements with high enough precision. The calculations and implementation are written in C#. A GUI is created for the user to use the program easily. The end product is a program that can take in one NC file and gives output on the time it should take for the Nailing Bridge to go through the file. The margin of error was between 5% to 31% for one operation of sawing or nailing, which is significantly higher than the goal of 3%. The program was therefore debugged with unit testing and new tests of the Nailing Bridge to find the sources for this margin of error. The conclusion is that the program works but not exactly to the company's standards.