Control Specification

The Ficep CNC controls are manufactured by the firm Mitrol, which is a Ficep owned company, that is specifically engaged in the engineering of CNC controls for Ficep and other firms outside the metal working industry.  Mitrol utilizes a PC in conjunction with their extremely powerful and versatile software to address the demanding needs of the structural steel and plate fabricators in the world market today. 

In today's environment, where the requirement for field service must be either eliminated or reduced, the Ficep CNC control technology has established this as a major criterion in the entire design concept. 

The powerful Ficep PC platform enables our service support team to address any problems or engage in diagnostic routines from a remote location by means of a phone modem or internet connection.  This approach permits a technician, located remotely, to check for example these following points:

• Check the actual part program for errors.
• Review and modify any system parameters
• Analyze the ladder logic to determine why the system has failed to operate
• Remotely activate a component such as a valve to determine if the valve is defective or it is not receiving a signal.
• Check the past screens that have been viewed by the operator to see if the operator forgot to mention some warning screens for example that may have been presented to the operator.
• Place an oscilloscope on the servo drives to monitor their performance under operation.

These are just a few examples of how our remote phone support service can facilitate the elimination of a problem or quickly identify what replacement part is required.  This process easily saves a day since the customer does not have to wait for a service tech to arrive only to determine in 5 minutes what part is required and then to sit for the next day arrival of the part.

CNC control hardware characteristics

Compact industrial hardware

• LCD color display
• PC keyboard
• Push-button panel
• Industrial PC

No I/O interface board is required.
No axes control boards are required.
No encoder switching boards are required.

CNC control software characteristics

• Operates under the Windows XP operating system
• Multitasking performance for simultaneous machine operation and programming
• Dimensional input in feet, inch, fractions or metric
• Production control feedback including a graphical representation of run times versus set up times etc.

The open platform of the PC enables our engineering team to continue to expand the operator and management interface to constantly enhance the productivity of our CNC fabrication systems for the efficient processing of plate and structural steel!