Your workshop machines on the network, from a 1998 control to a 5-axis.
If programs go to the machine on a USB stick, one machine at a time, we connect the machines you already have to the network, each through the port it has. Programs come from the server, the central computer in the office, and from your desk you can see how the machines with a network port are doing.
The problem
Every program carried over by hand, one machine at a time.
- Someone walks from the office computer to the control with a USB stick, or with the serial cable.
- A program corrected at the machine stays in the machine, and the version on the server goes out of date.
- There's a risk of loading the wrong version and losing the good one.
- Offsets measured on the presetter are typed in again by hand on the control's keyboard.
- From the office nobody knows whether a machine is working, stopped or in alarm: someone goes to look.
What we do
Three routes, depending on the control.
On the network, with status
Programs, in-cycle status, alarms and offsets all go across.
On the network, with tools
Programs, the tool inventory and alarms go across.
Serial port only
We fit a converter: programs arrive over the network, the machine's status does not.
A real job
A machine shop in Ticino
6 machines connected, from a 1998 control to a 5-axis.
There, USB sticks have disappeared from everyday work.
- Programs come from the server, and after every send they are read back from the control and compared with what was sent.
- Corrections made at the machine go back into the file on the server, and every step is kept as a version you can restore.
- Offsets go from the presetter to the machine without being typed in again.
- The program we wrote runs on the server the shop already had, with no recurring fees, and the machine programs never leave the company.
We don't give the shop's name: for us, client confidentiality comes first.
From the office
How the machines are doing, without going onto the shop floor.
Where the control has a network port, you can see from the office which machine is in cycle, which is stopped and which is in alarm. On machines with only a serial port, the programs go across but the status does not.
What we don't promise
Not all machines talk the same way.
Before telling you what can be done, we look at yours. On some controls the tool table can be read but not written: when that's the case, we put it in writing. With a control other than these, we run a test first.
To get started
Your machines, connected.
Tell us what you have in the workshop: controls, makes, how many machines. We'll tell you which can be connected and how.