Interview with Massimo Agrati – CEO of Dimac srl
Dimac mcv1 turns 20, the company’s flagship model was presented for the first time at the 2002 Düsseldorf Wire fair.
The mcv1 prototype was characterized by very robust mechanics, and a SONY vision system that today we would define almost “Jurassic” with an analog camera and cathode ray tube monitor programmable only with joystick. In those days our priority was the mechanics and the robustness.
My father Carlo Agrati (in the picture), founder of Ingramatic Spa, was one of the most important Italian mechanical designers in the field of machines for producing and threading screws. In Dimac, our family company, he wanted to put his experience at the service of the design of 100% automatic control and sorting machines that would guarantee high reliability and flexibility.
How did you decide to design a 100% automatic sorting machine for screws ?
The invitation to design these machines came from Italian customers of which my father was a consultant.
At the end of the 90s Dimac was mainly involved in the modernization of machines for the production of screws at ltalian, German and French customers. Thanks to mouth to mouth feedbacks we got in touch with a German sorting subcontractor specialized in the manual sorting of screws and special parts. They were looking for a top quality high speed sorting machine for screws and wanted to collaborate with us in the development of the prototype. That’s how the prototype of the mcv1 machine was born. The first machine is still working at the German subcontractor in Neuenrade after some modernizations.
What feedback did you get from Wire 2002?
Wire 2002 gave us important visibility and aroused a lot of curiosity among European customers. The authority recognized to my father in the field of fastener manufacturing and his deep knowledge of the most complex production machines convinced the first customers to believe that the mcv1 would surely be a high speed, robust and reliable machine.
How mcv1 developed after Wire 2002?
The evolution of the machine over the years has involved the part handling system: a feeder-bowl developed under our specifications for fasteners difficult to orientate , a feeder-bowl developed to obtain high output rates up to 800 pieces per minute, an elevator with hopper and tilting porter, a special conveyor belt to carry out softly the OK parts, a segregate chute for NOK parts inside the machine frame, a programmable output chute to keep separate NOK parts by choice, the development of machines for the immediate automatic boxing of the OK parts below the exit chute.
At the same time, new stations were introduced for non-destructive testing by eddy-current for cracks and heat treatment, new optical stations for 360° dimensional and surface defect control, mechanical control stations for gauging internal features.
The user interface and functions for optical dimensional control and for the detection of surface defects have been constantly enriched with new parameters and filters to identify increasingly complex and localized defects. The ability to archive the image gallery of defective pieces inside the control plan was introduced. A special TEST mode allows the vision system to verify the machine setup with all the images of known defects in the gallery. Statistical data have been made available in different formats such as CSV, TXT and SQL to be exported in real time by the remote connection. The machine can be monitored and programmed off-line.
Today we can confirm that mcv1 remains a cutting-edge machine for the 100% automatic selection of fasteners with a very high coefficient of reliability, versatility, precision and repeatability.
You can find us at WIRE 2022 – booth 13D63
20-24 june
Messe Düsseldorf
Stockumer Kirchstraße 61www.wire-tradefair.com
