Turret having rotating and non-rotating tooling

Abstract

A compound turret for machine tools such as latches or the like having rotating and non-rotating tooling turrets mounted on a single housing. The compound turret includes a primary drive and a secondary drive. The primary drive includes a compound turret indexing unit operable to index the rotating and non-rotating tooling turrets into the turret operating and turret storage positions. The compound turret indexing unit consists of a harmonic drive that enables the operator to incrementally vary the turret operating position. The harmonic drive achieves high reduction ratios in a single stage thus eliminating the cumbersome gear systems usually implemented to achieve the reduction ratios required. The primary drive further includes a non-rotating tool indexing unit. The non-rotating tool indexing unit is operable to index the non-rotating tooling. The non-rotating tool indexing unit consists of a harmonic drive unit similar to the compound turret indexing unit. The primary drive further includes a drive connection for driving the rotating tooling mounted on the rotating tooling turret. The secondary drive includes a rotating tool indexing unit. The rotating tool indexing unit includes a motor divingly connected to a worm gear in constant meshing engagement with a worm wheel. The worm wheel is operably connected to the rotating tooling plate for indexing the tooling mounted thereon. In addition to indexing the rotating tooling, the worm gear and worm wheel drive connection enable the operator to perform offcenter machining. This is accomplished by simultaneously rotating the rotating tooling turret, via the worm gear and worm wheel, and the main spindle upon which the work piece is mounted.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.