I am Hide Arai from the Research and Development Department. In this article, I’ll explain XEBEC Stone™ Flexible Shaft from a neuroscience perspective.
XEBEC Stone™ Flexible Shaft is a rotary tool attachment featuring our proprietary abrasive stone and shaft design. Its spring steel flexible shaft allows gentle contact with the workpiece and helps suppress chatter during machining. It is ideal for removing burrs from the entrance and exit of drilled holes.
XEBEC Stone™ Flexible Shaft product information
As the demonstration video shows, the abrasive stone hardly bounces during deburring with XEBEC Stone™ Flexible Shaft, referred to below as the Flexible Shaft.
Customers who use the Flexible Shaft have shared comments such as these:
Ease of use is clearly one of the Flexible Shaft’s key strengths. Neuroscience offers an explanation for why it feels so easy to handle.
In neuroscience, an “efference copy” is a copy of the commands the brain sends to the muscles when we move. The brain uses this internal copy to check whether the body has moved as intended.
Alongside sending commands to the muscles, the brain has a neural network that predicts the resulting movement. It compares that prediction with what actually happens. The smaller the difference, the more smoothly we move and the more effectively we handle tools.
Whether playing the piano, writing more fluidly, or learning to throw a ball accurately, we improve through practice. With each movement, the brain compares what it expected to happen with what actually happened. Over time, this process refines the brain’s internal model, allowing us to perform movements with greater precision and ease.
The Flexible Shaft’s ease of use is closely linked to efference copy. The stone’s actual movement tends to match the brain’s predictions, which makes the tool feel easy to use. This behavior comes from the properties of two materials at the heart of our patented technology: the ceramic stone and spring steel.
Our abrasive stone uses proprietary ceramic fibers as the abrasive material instead of conventional abrasive grains. Each fiber is on the micrometer scale, and the stone contains a large number of them. Rather than removing burrs in large pieces, the stone grinds them into fine particles. This produces less recoil during cutting than rotary (carbide) burrs or abrasive stones containing larger abrasive grains.
As its name suggests, spring steel is a metal used to make springs. It combines high strength with elasticity. We use spring steel, which is not normally found in conventional mounted abrasive stones, for the shaft and carefully tune its stiffness. This makes the stone much less prone to bouncing.
Together, these two features suppress unexpected bouncing. The stone’s behavior becomes easier to predict subconsciously, which is why the Flexible Shaft feels so easy to use.
The content on this website reflects our values and activities. Reproduction or use without permission is strictly prohibited. If you wish to reproduce any content, please contact us and obtain permission in advance.
For advice on automating your deburring process, please contact us (customerservice@xebec-tech.co.jp).
