Elscint recently manufactured and supplied a vibratory bowl feeder to a major multinational automobile company for feeding of cup plugs. These are used in engine assembly and need to be fed automatically. Presently, the same were placed in a chute manually. The customer already had the rest of the automation, only the placement of the plugs was manually. However, there were two types of cup plugs, one with dia 20 mm and one with diameter 24 mm. These were to be fed into two separate gravity chutes of the customer and the centre distance between the two was just 70 mm. Space constraints made it impossible to accommodate two separate bowl feeders for these two cup plugs. The customer approached us for a solution for these. We designed a single bowl feeder where both the cup plugs were to be dumped together and then they were segregated and sorted inside the bowl itself and fed into separate outlets, one for the diameter 20 mm one which was to be fed flat with the open side facing ground and for the diameter 24 mm one which was to be fed in rolling orientation with the open side facing away from the bowl centre. From the end of the bowl feeder, two separate gravity chutes were provided upto the inlet points of the respective chutes of the customer. The centre distance, X-Y & Z axis of both the chutes were different and proper care was provided to ensure that they easily match with the customer’s inlet points. The feed rate or the cycle time of the customer’s machine was very less, around 2 cup plugs per minute but the bowl feeder fed at more than 60 parts per minute per outlet. Sensors were provided on both the chutes to ensure that the bowl feeder was switched off once both the chutes were full. Proper poka-yoke arrangements were made inside the bowl to ensure that only the correct cup plugs were fed in the respective tracks. The inlet heights were around 1100 mm and hence a cubical stand with (+/-) 100 mm height adjustment was provided to mount the bowl feeder. A noise enclosure made from stainless steel tubes and lined with acoustic foam was also provided to ensure that the noise level was less than 70 Db. The equipment was to be completed in 3 weeks as the same had to be installed in the customer’s factory during the annual year end maintenance shut down. Not only this was completed but also a step ladder was provided so that the operator could feed the parts into the bowl easily.
Additionally, a level controller inside the bowl feeder ensured that the operator was provided with a signal from a tower lamp once the parts in the bowl feeder were less.