TABLE OF CONTENTS Any CNC machine can be equipped with additional accessories, to make it more functional or functional in a particular way. In fact, most CNC machines have at least some additional accessories, either as a standard equipment or as an option. Machining centers have indexing and rotary tables, pallets, right angle heads, etc. All these are complex accessories and require a certain amount of time to understand them well. Apart from live tooling capabilities (described in a separate chapter), many CNC lathes are equipped with accessories that are usually quite simple to program. Some of the most noteworthy and typical programmable additions (or features) of this kind are:
Chuck control
Tailstock quill
Bi-directional turret indexing
Barfeeder
Other features may also be programmable as options:
Parts catcher (unloader)
Pull-out finger
Tailstock body and quill
Steady rest / follower rest
Part stopper
others as per machine design
Some of these accessories are fairly common, so it is worth looking at them in some detail and with a few examples of their programming applications.
In manual operations, a chuck, a collet or a special fixture mounted on the headstock of a lathe normally opens and closes when CNC operator presses a foot pedal. For safety reasons, a chuck that is rotating cannot be opened, because it is protected by an special safety interlock. Another important feature of chucks is that the terms open and close depend on the method of chucking - external or internal.
