Machine Control Emphasizes Conformity to Operator Workflow

Makino introduces the Professional 6 (Pro6) control designed to move operators fluidly through machine setup and protect them with enhanced safety. The Pro6 accelerates productivity for machine shops and tool, die and mold makers with streamlined screen layouts, operator guidance and the latest machine functions, the company says.

Combining the stability of FANUC hardware and Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 7 OS, the Pro6 provides streamlined operation, operator assistance and enhanced safety. The screen layout matches the operator’s process flow from setup to production. Guidance functions, parameters, code and manual search function are available on-screen when and where they’re needed. A dual door check, 3D graphic viewer, maintenance screens and easy access to machine information are also included.

The recently developed “My Panel” features enable operators to store frequently used functions, macros or switches for quick access. The control has a new QWERTY keyboard and larger 15" display. An interactive status bar at the top of the screen enables the operator to see information on warnings, alarms and indicator statuses by tapping it.

The Pro6 control is customizable, and offers on-screen programming guidance for drilling canned cycles, probing, automatic tool length measurement (ATLM) and tilted working plane. The operator follows prompts and selects “input” to automatically insert lines of code into a program.

New functions raise the standard for machine control, including its Geometric Intelligence (GI) that provides 2D corner control and optimized canned cycle indexing. Pro6 also has simultaneous program editing, MDI recall of the past 20 inputs, and 3 GB of memory for program and subprogram storage, with an option to expand to 20 GB.