Patent ID: 9308662
Filing Date: 2016-04-12
CPC Classification: B26D,B26F,B31B,G05B,Y10T

Claim Text:
1. A cutting and stripping apparatus to make a strip-die, cut a sheet of stock material according to a pre-defined pattern, and to automatically remove waste material using the strip die, the apparatus including: a cutting surface having a cutting area on which a sheet of material may be placed; a stripping station surface having a stripping area on which a strip die sheet of material may be placed; at least one tool holder mechanism operable to controllably move a cutting tool over the cutting area and be able to controllably move a removal tool over the stripping area; and a controller comprising one or more processors, a connection to the at least one tool cutting mechanism, and one or more non-transitory computer-readable media that are coupled to the one or more processors, the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media having stored therein instructions that when executed by at least one processor of the controller: (a) cause the controller to accept a pre-determined material-cutting pattern for cutting a to-be-cut sheet of material into one or more final portions and one or more to-be-removed pieces of waste material, such that the sheet after cutting and removing of the one or more to-be-removed pieces of waste material includes the one or more final portions and one or more voids, (b) cause the controller to accept or determine a strip-die cutting pattern for preparing a strip die, the strip-die cutting pattern determined using the pre-determined material-cutting pattern, wherein a strip die prepared according to the strip-die cutting pattern comprises one or more openings and one or more final strip-die portions, with at least one of the one or more final portions of the cut sheet of material having a corresponding final strip-die portion in the prepared strip die, and having a shape, after cutting, that is similar to the shape of the corresponding final strip-die portion; (c) cause the cutting tool to cut a sheet of strip-die material that that is positioned on the cutting table surface, and cause removing one or more to-be-removed pieces of waste strip-die material, the cutting and removing preparing a strip die made of the strip-die material according to the strip-die cutting pattern, wherein the prepared strip die is positioned at a strip-die position on the stripping station surface (d) cause the cutting tool to cut a to-be-cut sheet of stock material that has been placed on the cutting surface according to the pre-determined material-cutting pattern, resulting in a cut sheet of stock material that includes, in cut form, the one or more final portions and the one or more to-be-removed pieces of waste material; (e) cause the cut sheet of stock material to be moved to the stripping station surface positioned over the strip die at a pre-determined position relative to the strip-die position such that the at least one of the one or more final portions of the cut sheet of stock material covers the corresponding final strip-die portion; and (f) cause the removal tool to remove the one or more to-be-removed pieces of waste material from the cut sheet of stock material.