Why do we use Centroid Controls?

Well the short answer is Flexibility, Availability, and well made in the USA. 

We enjoy using Centroid controls because of the flexibility we have to customize to nearly any machine without the need to buy specific components that are unique to the type of machine. The same control used for a lathe can be used for a mill, router, laser, plasma, and even grinders. We started out in an industry that serviced industrial knives so we utilized a wide variety of machines from CNC machining centers and lathes to automated knife grinders. We used brands such as Haas, Fadal, Brother, Agie Charmile, Gockel, Reform, Walters and much more. One thing about all these machines was they all had different controls and aside from having to know how to use all these different controls there was still the issue of cost to repair. Most of the machines were very expensive to repair not to mention parts were either hard to find or not very readily available. Some would require factory service techs to perform the repairs. We began to retrofit broken down machines with Centroid because the parts were relatively inexpensive and faster to acquire vs the original brands. Some of the machines were almost cheaper to retrofit than it was to replace just a few major control components that had failed. Gockels were a big winner in this aspect as we could pretty much purchase the entire control for less then the original servo motors cost. The only issue we had was well these were advanced CNC controls vs the original PLC based control that had a very basic operation and didn't require programming like all CNC's do. With Centroid's flexibility we were able to dumb down and simplify the operation of the machines with a custom UI that the operator would be able to just enter some settings and the control would take it from there and the operators didn't need to interreact with the CNC aspect of the control.