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Elscint has recently manufactured a vibratory bowl feeder for feeding of droppers. The requirement was to feed the droppers with the rubber cap up / plastic tube down. However, the weight of the dropper was towards the rubber cap and due to this almost 95% of the droppers came with the rubber cap down. For this the droppers were twisted 180 degrees to get them in the correct direction with the rubber cap up. This was easier said than done as the required speed was minimum 300 droppers per minute. Elscint used its Model 630 which has 4 powerful coils mounted on the periphery of the vibrator drive, thus giving a very stable and powerful performance. A bowl of more 1100 mm in diameter was fabricated in stainless steel cascade / step design. This helped achieve a feed rate / speed of 400 parts per minute. Interestingly, most other bowl feeder manufacturers had quoted a speed of just 150 parts per minute for this application. This shows that a correctly engineered drive can help you achieve the required speed and proper orientation is possible if the bowl is tooled properly. Ahead of the bowl feeder a linear vibrator having a 800 mm long track was attached. Then the droppers were made vertically down in a sector type chute. All this at a speed of 400 droppers per minute. The equipment was supplied mounted on a single base plate for ease of integration at the customer’s end. Being a pharmaceutical requirement, the base plate was cladded in stainless steel and all pharma MOCs were used.
You can watch the video of the Elscint dropper bowl feeder.