An Automatically Controlled Vertical Turret Lathe

This paper describes a punched-tape control system for a vertical turret lathe having a rail head and a side head. The system exercises complete control over turret indexing, tool feeds, table speed, tool dwell, etc. Coordination of the operations of the two heads is obtained by proper wording of the program. Calibrated adjusting potentiometers (automatically selected by the control) have been provided to allow the operator to compensate for tool deflections, and the like, on critical workpiece dimensions. Novel features such as single-cycle operation, single-head operation, and operation repeat have been incorporated in the control to facilitate the setup procedure. Programming is simple and direct, with no equipment required other than a standard 8 channel Flexowriter.