CNC controlled rotating work piece holding fixtures for a horizontal mill

A CNC controlled horizontal mill and rotating workpiece holder comprising:

• a tombstone attached to the horizontal mill;
• between two and eight CNC controlled rotating workpiece holding fixture mounted to the tombstone, each rotating workpiece holding fixture including:
• a harmonic drive;
• and
• a servo motor;
• a CNC controller executing a CNC program including M-codes and G-codes generating rotating workpiece holding fixture commands for each rotating workpiece holding fixture;
• an M-code relay receiving activation signals from the CNC controller triggered by the M-code and forwarding the activation signals to a control box;
• parallel DPRNT commands for each rotating workpiece holding fixture generated by the CNC controller based on instruction in the G-code and provided to the control box;
• multiplexed parallel DPRNT commands generated by the control box and provided to the tombstone after receiving the activation signal from the M-code relay;
• a controller residing in the tombstone and receiving the multiplexed position commands and de-multiplexing the position commands to obtain individual rotating workpiece holding fixtures commands;
• communication between the controller and the rotating workpiece holding fixture providing signals to the rotating workpiece holding fixtures and providing rotating workpiece holding fixture position information back to the controller;
• communications from the controller to the control box providing a first motion finished signal to the control box;
• communication between the control box and the M-code relay providing a second motion finished signal to the M-code relay;
• and
• communication between the M-code relay and the CNC controller providing a third motion finished signal to the CNC controller.

A method for providing a fifth CNC controlled axis, the method comprising:

• attaching a tombstone to the horizontal mill;
• attaching between two and eight CNC controlled rotating workpiece holding fixture mounted to the tombstone, each rotating workpiece holding fixture including:
• a harmonic drive;
• and
• a servo motor;
• executing a CNC program including M-codes and G-codes generating rotating workpiece holding fixture commands for each rotating workpiece holding fixture;
• sending parallel DPRNT commands to a control box for each rotating workpiece holding fixture, the parallel DPRNT commands generated by the CNC controller based on instruction in the G-code and provided to the control box;
• multiplexing the parallel DPRNT commands to provide a multiplexed signal;
• sending activation signals from the CNC controller to an M-code relay, the sending triggered by the M-code;
• forwarding the activation signals to a control box;
• providing the multiplexed parallel DPRNT commands generated by the control box to the tombstone after receiving the activation signal from the M-code relay;
• receiving the multiplexed parallel DPRNT commands by a controller residing in the tombstone and de-multiplexing the multiplexed parallel DPRNT commands to obtain individual rotating workpiece holding fixtures commands;
• providing position signals to the rotating workpiece holding fixtures and providing rotating workpiece holding fixture position information back to the controller;
• communicating from the controller to the control box providing a first motion finished signal to the control box;
• communicating between the control box and the M-code relay providing a second motion finished signal to the M-code relay;
• and
• communicating between the M-code relay and the CNC controller providing a third motion finished signal to the CNC controller.