Overview

The Ficep Gemini is the complete plate working solution for fabricators and manufacturers of all sizes. The inbuilt flexibility of the Gemini concept means that you only buy the machine you need. Gemini will give you the lowest cost due to its maximum flexibility, high productivity and minimal floor space.

The focus of the Gemini design is to provide the shortest floor to floor times for your standard work with lowest cost tooling and flexibility for the occasional and unusual. The Gemini handles from light to heavy plate for thermal cutting, marking, milling, drilling, tapping, beveling and more all on one system with unprecedented accuracy.

Cutting

Supplied with plasma and optional oxy-fuel torches, depending on the model the Gemini can cut plates from 1/8” (3 mm) to 12” (305 mm) in steel and from 1/8” (3 mm) to 1-1/2” (40 mm) in stainless, brass and aluminum. Machine repeatability of .004” (.1 mm) ensures quality parts for better fit up and less welding time. For heavy plate work, the Gemini can be supplied with up to three oxy-fuel torches for accurate stripping or multiple part cutting. The HD and XD Geminis can also be fitted with two plasma or oxy-fuel bevel heads or one of each.

Beveling

The Gemini can make weld preps either by milling, plasma or oxy beveling. For precision bevels, milling is more accurate and for small internal bevels is often faster. In some cases the mechanical beveling on the Gemini can eliminate the need for plasma beveling.

A big advantage of machining is that tapering for but welds of different thicknesses and J groove bevels can also be produced. Where applicable J preps can halve the welding time compared to conventional Y or K preparation

For variable bevels, large parts and K preps, plasma beveling is the most economical process and the Gemini bevel head is one of the most flexible available. For heavy plate work auto- rotating triple oxy heads are available

Marking and scribing

The Gemini can be furnished with a wide variety of marking devices depending on your needs. Fabrication and bending lines can be indicated with a scribing tool, plasma or flame powder marking. Identification marks and part numbers for fabrication can be added with the scribing tool, plasma marker or a pin marker.

Deeper marking suitable for viewing after painting or galvanizing can be performed with a scribing tool . Locations for the positioning and welding of parts with reference points are produced with the scribing tool. You can even scribe the part number of the matching part so that the component becomes it's own traveling assembly instruction. In many cases for large fabrications the savings in time and errors from marking out on the machine are so large that they can pay for the machine even without cutting and machining savings.

Drilling and Tapping

The precision of the Gemini provides unprecedented accuracy of both hole to hole and hole to edge locations. The high speed positioning with wide area clamping provides very high productivity.

For larger holes the Gemini's helical milling and thread milling capabilities provide superior hole quality at vastly reduced tooling cost compared to standard drilling techniques. This can even be done even in 500 Br. material if needed. Gemini can mill holes with exceptional accuracy (<0.004” (.1 mm) tolerance on diameter and concentricity.

For many applications, tapped or shaped holes in the components can reduce welding, fitting and assembly time. Special holes for coach bolts, plow bolts and blade bolts can also be produced in one setup. This is especially useful in mining and earth-moving equipment. For tapping, the digital control system provides high quality threads on tapped holes as small as 1/8” (3 mm) for cable clips, etc. and up to 15/16” (22 mm) for structural bolts. In hard materials or holes up to 350 diameter thread milling is a very simple way of producing high quality threads with low tooling costs.

Surface and slot milling

On machine parts and many structural detail items, slotted holes, milled bearing or mating surfaces, etc. are required. The accuracy of the Gemini in both cutting and machining means that many of these operations can be performed on the stock plate, thus eliminating the expense, handling cost, floor space and lead-time of secondary operations.

For fabrication the milling of weld prep surfaces can drastically reduce welding costs. For example milling the profile of a column into a base plate can reduce welding time by 75% because you can guarantee full contact from the column to the base plate.

For seal surfaces for example on flame proof cabinets not only can we guarantee a flat seal mounting surface but if necessary an O-ring groove can be machined into the surface.

A unique capacity of the Gemini is precision tab and slot preparation. Often tab and slot assembly is difficult to work with plasma cut slots because the tolerance on the slot needs to be so large that the accuracy of the assembly is compromised. A milled slot can be made to exactly fit the tab so assembly fit-up is much tighter therefore dimensional accuracy of the final assembly is much higher.