Vibratory bowl feeders are common devices used to feed individual component parts for assembly on industrial production lines. They are used when a randomly sorted bulk package of small components must be fed into another machine one-by-one, oriented in a particular direction.

Vibratory feeders rely on the mechanical behavior of a part, such that when gently shaken down a conveyor chute that is shaped to fit the part, they will gradually be shaken so that they are all aligned. They thus leave the feeder’s conveyor one-by-one, all in the same orientation. This conveyor then leads directly to the following assembly or packing machine. Bowl feeders use a combination of forces such as gravity, balance, rotation, and vibration to orient the parts.

Orientation relies on the shape and mechanical behavior of an object, particularly the position of its centre of mass in relation to its centre of volume. It thus works well for parts such as machine screws, with rotational symmetry and a clear asymmetry to one heavy end. It does not work for entirely symmetrical shapes, or where orientation depends on a feature such as color. The ramps within a bowl feeder are specifically designed for each part, although the core mechanism is re-used across different parts.

The exit orientation of a bowl feeder depends on the part’s shape and mass distribution. Where this is not the orientation needed for the following assembly step, a feeder is often followed by a twisted conveyor that turns the part over, as needed.

A typical vibratory feeder bowl setup consists of a specially shaped bowl designed to orient the parts to a specific orientation. A vibrating drive unit, upon which the bowl is mounted and a variable-amplitude control box controls the bowl feeder. Usually included is an out feed accumulation track (linear or gravity) to convey parts along and discharge into the assembly machine comes in many shapes and sizes. The drive unit, available in both electromagnetic and pneumatic drives, vibrates the bowl, forcing the parts to move up a circular, inclined track. The tooling (hand made) is designed to sort and orient the parts in to a consistent, repeatable position. The track length, width, and depth are carefully chosen to suit each application, component shape and size. Special bowl and track coatings are applied according to shape size and material of the component which aids traction, damage to the product and lower acoustic levels. A variable speed control box is used for controlling the vibration speed of the bowl feeder, and can control the flow of parts to the out feed track via sensors.

Vibratory feeders are utilized by all industries including, the pharmaceutical, automotive, electronic, cosmetic, food, Fast Moving Consumable Goods (FMCG), packaging, and metalworking industries. It also serves other industries such as glass, foundry, steel, construction, recycling, pulp and paper, and plastics. Vibratory feeders offer a cost-effective alternative to manual labor, saving manufacturer’s time and labor costs. Several factors must be considered when selecting a parts feeder, including the industry, application, material properties and product volume. Feel free to consult us today on your next feeding application and we will be glad to help.

At Feeding Concepts vibratory feeders are the core competence of our company. We know our wheelhouse and try to stay inside it. We deal and interact with all types of vibratory feeders every day.  Terminology is a key part of design and ordering of a feeder system.  We try to keep it simple and to the point.  When identifying your needs on projects but sometimes some words and terminology can get crossed and can cause miss ordered components.  Below is some basic terminology that can help you through the design of your next feeder order:

Bowl Discharge – XYZ output location of a Vibratory bowl.

Base Drive – Vibrator the bowl is mounted to.

Tooling – Construction that selects correctly oriented parts and removes incorrectly oriented parts.

Confinement Blades – Tooling that confines a part’s movement after orientation.

Cam – Tooling to rotate a part or thin parts down when feeding parts.

Pit free Surface – Eliminates all small seams / Cavities when welding metals pieces together on part running surface.

Off Tangent – Straight length of discharge track off the center of the bowl.

Basic Bowl– A vibratory bowl with no tooling.

Shingling – Parts that overlap and jam under confinement.

Fan tooling – Tooling Section that uses the parts weight with gravity to allow parts into a hanging orientation

Return Pan – Outside angle pan that brings miss oriented parts back into the basic bowl.

Air Selector – An air jet that engages a part for pre-orientation.

Passivation – Chemical process to inhibit corrosion in medical feeder applications.

Chord section –Tooling that is straight and most of the time machined for part selection.

Scallops – Profile sections that work with inner and outer dimension to select parts.

Pill blades – Tooling that uses multiple points of contact on parts to select leading and trailing orientation.

Profile – Tooling that uses the outline profile of the part to allow part selection and orientation.

Back Pressure Bubbling –  Tooling on feeder bowls that allows for parts to run with no track switch and backup into the bowl falling off back into the basic or return pan.

When ordering your next feeder, we hope the above terminology will help you in bridging the gap on ordering and design, almost all the above terms are used throughout the feeder industry. Here at Feeding Concepts getting a good understanding of your concept and matching it to what we are designing is always the highest priority. If you ever have a question or need a concept of your system we are always happy to help.