Many times one needs to pick up a component with a pick & place for placing it in the required position for assembly or for further operation. For this, the part needs to be oriented and fed. A vibratory bowl feeder can take care of the orientation and feeding of the component. However, at the end of the bowl, one cannot just pick up the part with a pick & place, the reasons being
- The pick & place device would, in most cases, fowl with the bowl.
- If the part is picked up at the end of the bowl, then there are very less parts / components behind, which can act as a buffer. This means, the pick & place would need to wait for the parts to come to the pick up point.
To eliminate these possibilities, a linear vibrator or gravity chute should be used with a non-vibrating part and stopper to ensure smooth pick up. The advantage of using a gravity track is that it is cheaper to make and secondly, there are no running costs involved, however, the disadvantage is that some amount of back pressure is required. This means there will always be a dead stock in the chute. To eliminate this possibility and make the pick up smooth, a linear vibrator with a non-vibrating part is most suitable. The non-vibrating part acts as a nesting point for pick up ahead of the vibrating linear track.