Elscint recently manufactured two high speed vibratory bowl feeders, one for feeding of small caps while the other was for feeding of small plugs. The speed required was 300 parts per minute. Even for a small cap having diameter of dia 22.5 mm x 39 mm ht, this was a difficult one. Further, the cap was pointed on one end so didn’t come out either open side up or down. It came lengthwise making it more difficult to orient at a high speed. The plug’s size was dia 20 mm x 24 mm ht. and it too was pointed on one end and again came in lengthwise direction. Further, the plug did not have a proper collar or step to hold it for orientation.

For such a high speed, 2 rows were taken and then converged into a single one. However, when such a concept is used, it is imperative that another orientation confirmation mechanism and secondly, overflow is provided in the bowl. This was accordingly provided. Additionally, a 650 mm long linear track was provided in both the cases. Model LF II Linear vibrator was used for this purpose with excellent results. For the vibratory feeders, Model 630 with a stainless steel bowl was used. The bowl diameter was around 1050 mm, ensuring enough space for orientation tooling, overflow as also final confirmation of orientation. As the speeds were very high, a 50 litre hopper was provided for each of the bowl feeders with level controllers for each of the bowl feeders. This ensured that the operator need not load continuously into the bowls.

You can watch the video of the bowl feeder here for the caps and that for the plugs.