Productivity on a plate

processing services and further increased productivity.

Parker Steel's initial interest in the machine was fuelled by its capability to plasma and flame cut, drill, scribe and machine in situ without the need to transfer pieces to other machinery or subcontractors for finishing off. The need to transfer pieces between machines for services such as laser, oxy fuel and waterjet cutting is no longer applicable, resulting in significant savings in production costs.

Gemini 25 is a compact footprint automatic CNC machine that can produce flat metal parts from plate 6mm up to 80mm thick with cutting lengths from 5m to 30m in a single set-up. Ficep claims it can do this more economically, at a lower cost per part, yet with the same or greater accuracy than by using separate cutting machines and machining centres.

Parker Steel's managing director, Guy Parker comments: “The Gemini has enabled us to offer our varied customer base a complete range of services on sheet and plate products. The machine is unbelievably fast in drilling holes up to 32mm diameter, milling larger holes and producing slotted holes. Add to this the capability of plasma cutting up to 40mm thick and it really is the machine we've been waiting for. The Gemini enables us to pass these savings on to our customers thereby lowering their fabrication costs.”

The Gemini 25 can be fitted with a wide variety of part marking devices to suit customer requirement which can significantly reduce fabrication time and manpower requirements. For light fabrication to enable the marking of bending lines, a scribing tool or plasma marking system can be used. Both the HT2000 and HPR260 Hypertherm plasma torches are available and an accuracy of 0.1mm ensures fast fit-up and reduced welding time.

The high speed drilling spindle combined with wide area clamping provides high productivity levels and hole-to-hole accuracies of better than 0.1mm and hole-to-edge positioning of better than 0.5mm. Slotted holes or milled bearing/mating faces – work that was traditionally performed on large machining centres or boring machines after fabrication – can now be produced on a single machine.

Edge bevelling for weld edge preps can be made either by milling or plasma torch but for precision bevelling, milling is said to be the most accurate. When variable bevels are required, plasma bevelling is faster and more economical.

Ficep has equipped the Gemini with a Fanuc controller including Minosse CNC software which controls the nesting and machining macros for bevelling, J preps, helical milling, tapping, scribing and countersinking.

Ficep
www.ficep.co.uk