Drilling is one of the most common machining operations. A drilling machine is featured by a rotating cutting tool that advances along axis into a stationary workpiece creating a hole. The common operations that can be performed on a drill press are – drilling, reaming, boring, countersinking and tapping. The capacity of drilling machine is determined by the size of the largest workpiece on which the spindle can be centered. Drilling machine can be categorized in five major classes- upright, radials, horizontals, turret drills and multiple-spindle machine.
Upright drills include large group and are featured by a single vertical spindle moving in a fixed position.
Radial drills are made to handle large operation. The machine is designed to position spindle to drill at any area within the access of the machine through movement created by head, arm and arm rotation about the column.
Horizontal drills feature the special spindle position. They have self-contained units comprising of motor drive, gear and spindle that can be mounted at any predetermined drill angle and are widely used to meet high production requirements.
Turret drilling machines feature numerous tools mounted in a turret designed to handle a series of operations. The machine also features computer numerically controlled machine.
Multiple-spindle drilling machines are designed with fixed spindles for single purpose production and where the spindles are adjustable by universal joints or by traversing along a worm or spiral drive in a straight line. These drilling machines are widely used for high production rate samples.
A commonly used type Twin spindle drilling machine for mass production has a major role in mechanical industry to increase the productivity of machining equipment. It is a production type of equipment to drill double holes in a required simultaneously. The holes are drilled on various pieces with same accuracy to make them interchangeable. Both spindles are driven by a single motor that are fed into the material together. Feeding motions are received by raising the work table or by lowering the drills head. In large scale production work drill jigs are used to direct the drills in the work piece to achieve the desired outcomes.
It is difficult to estimate the drilling depth, even a nominal human error, the operation may fail, additionally different size holes cannot be drilled without altering the drill bit. To solve such issues, an automated drilling machine is designed that aims to drill the holes automatically.