There comes a point in the life of every business when it has to choose between investing in an advanced technology and staying with the tried-and-true—the potential big payback versus the safe status quo. When that choice confronted the owners of Fidelity Machine & Mould Solutions, CalgaryCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, Alberta, they opted out of the status quo and went for a CNC machine control solution from Miceli Technologies Inc. (MTI), Windsor, Ontario.

　　Mechanically, Fidelity's original machines were capabl

e of moving at 300 to 400 inches per minute, but the outdated controllers weren't.  MTI's constant velocity controller is built for speed and is appropriate for applications like this: machining strain relief inserts for cable overmolds. Source: Fidelity Machine
　　The decision brought together four entrepreneurial Canadians, two veteran moldmakers and two machine tool controls wizards. As often happens in business, sound creative decisions sprang from insufficient cash. Retrofitting used but well-cared-for mid-size vertical machining center (VMC) costs about $120,000. That's about one-sixth of the $750控制工程网版权所有,000 installed price of an equivalent new machineCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, says Fidelity co-owner Jeff Litster, “and that was way beyond our budget. [With the retrofit,] we got a lower-cost machine that will perform better than high-end new machine tools.”
　　Fidelity chose the MTI retrofit in part because of MTI's “competitive price, [and] the value we saw in constant-velocity cutting控制工程网版权所有,” says Litster. Once the MTI constant velocity controller (CVC) was added to the 10-year-old Fadal VMC, Litster and co-owner Ryan Arsenau almost immediately got the benefits they wanted in productivityCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, and more. In just a few hours after powering up, for example, everything was running flawlessly. The CVC learning curve also was half what other controllers had required in the past, Litster says.
　　Speed is the key
　　The whys and hows of this success have to do with the way a machine tool and its computer numerical cont