While designing a bowl feeder, deciding upon the track width of the bowl is very important for the proper orientation and speed of the components. If the track is too wide with respect to the component size, then all the components would come up widthwise while in case the track width is too less, most of the components would fall off the track, back into the bowl. Hence, the track width is most important in cases where the orientation is critical and secondly where the speed or feed rate required is high. Further, in case the track width is too large, the bowl (especially in case of step or cascade bowls), would become too big and won’t function properly. While in case of cylindrical bowls, in case of large track width, the loading space for the parts reduces, increasing the jamming of components, which is the hall mark of cylindrical bowls. Hence, a proper balance has to be stuck between the two, depending upon the component size. Quite a lot of small and new bowl feeder manufacturers do not understand the importance of having the correct track width and this does result in a lot of problems in their bowl feeders like wrong orientation or reduced feed rates. Further many small bowl feeder manufacturers have standard bowls with standard track widths which they use for all applications, irrespective of the component dimensions. This reduces their cost and time, but results in the customer suffering with lower feed rates. Hence, it is always better to purchase bowl feeders from established and reputed companies, which have the correct technology and skills to plan and design a bowl having the correct pitch for a particular component. 

Usually, for feeding and orientation of taper rollerscounter rotating motorized gauge rolls,are used. A vibratory bowl feeder feeds the taper rollers in axial direction, without reference to any particular side being forward or behind to a set of motorized gauge rolls. The inclination of the rolls, plus adjustable roll spacing from one end to the other enables parts to move / travel easily and rapidly into the desired position. An important feature is that the rolls being counter-rotating do not bind or grip the parts and are extremely sensitive to fine tolerances. The taper rollers are oriented on the motorized gauge rolls to ensure that the smaller diameter is always leading and are dropped into a pump unit driven again by a geared motor. The pump unit then elevates the rollers to the desired height from where they can be fed by gravity to the work station where they are needed. The advantage of this system is that the feeding equipment can be kept at a distance from the machine where these rollers are being used. An innovation in this is to use a single vibratory bowl feeder having two outlets, to feed to two separate sets of motorized gauge rolls and pump units. This results in not only doubling the output but also getting the rollers in two outlets which can be used to feed to two separate machines. Thus the need of having two separate feeding systems is eliminated. Read more...

Feeding of sintered parts presents a very tricky challenge in the case of vibratory feeders. The reason being that these are fragile and even a very small fall from the from the top of the bowl can break them. Due to this reason, a special type of lining / coating is required if these require to be fed in a bowl feeder. The Elscinthane PU coating is most suitable and requires extra thickness. Further the Bowl too is required to be designed in such a manner that the possibility of a fall is reduced if not eliminated. If the components do fall during orientation, the fall is contained by specially designed flaps. 

Feeding of spoons is a very tricky affair as most of the times they do not have a particular geometry whereby one can hold them. They can slip out due their inherent design. Hence, feeding of spoons is always difficult in a vibratory bowl feeder. However, it is possible to manufacture bowl feeders for feeding and orienting spoons at high speed. This requires proper knowledge and skill on the part of the bowl tooler. In fact, in a correctly designed bowl feeder, it is possible that with slight adjustment, various sizes of Spoons can be fed through the same. As most of the times the spoons are used for medical or food requirements, either a stainless steel bowl or else a cast aluminium bowl with proper FDA compliant coating has to be used. In case of Spoon Feeding, not only is the Orientation very critical but the Speed or Feed Rate required to be achieved is also very high. Additionally, singling or escapement can be provided which in turn helps in releasing one Spoon at a time. Speeds / feed rates of approximately 80 to 100 Spoons per minute can be achieved depending upon the size of the Spoon. This type of Vibratory Bowl Feeder has tremendous requirement for all Pharmaceutical Machine Manufacturers as well as user industries for automating their various processes.

Feeding of Conical Washers is not easy in a vibratory bowl feeder due to its very less thickness. In most cases, the thickness is just 0.6 mm to 0.8 mm. Due to its conical curvature, the washers have a tendency of coming in a bunch and it is difficult to remove one out of the bunch. Orientation too is very critical as these washer need to be assembled in the correct orientation. This makes it pertinent to have a bowl feeder that not only feeds correctly oriented parts consistently but also feeds them in a single row, thereby eliminating the chances of double feeding of the washers. A properly designed bowl feeder can feed such conical washers and also eliminate the possibility of their bunching together.  Further adding a linear track can result in easy movement of the conical washers and allows them to be picked up easily by a pick and place device by isolating the last washer.

Small pressure springs are a tiny but vital part in numerous modern products. In fact, one of the most time consuming techniques is the handling of small components such as springs. Not only are they usually supplied in a tangled mass, from which they need to be freed, but they are also difficult to pick up and fix into position. It is very important that the feeding and location of the springs is extremely accurate during assembly. Vibratory bowl feeders can be used for feeding such springs. However, in case of severe entanglement of the springs, one requires a spring disentangler in addition to a bowl feeder for proper feeding of the springs. The spring disentangle disentangles the springs and loads them into the vibratory bowl feeder. The entangled springs are then recirculated to the spring disentangle. Depending upon the size of the springs, the correct size of the spring disentangle and bowl feeder can be planned. Further, depending upon the requirement, the springs can be fed in 1 or even more outlets (even 4 to 5). 

A very important usage of vibratory part feeders is for accurately counting of small parts like plastic caps, spouts, screws, rivets, capsules and electrical connectors, bearings,  as well as heavy parts such as anchor bolts, bearing races and metal sockets. The standard equipment consists of a suitable vibratory bowl feeder, a sensing device and an electronic reset able counter. The counter can be even upto 10 digits and even more in case of special requirements. Counting speeds can be very high, depending upon the component which requires counting and the accuracy required. Once a preset number is reached, the counting can be made to stop automatically. Restart can be either manually or again automatically on receiving of a Signal. This equipment finds use in various industries, namely, cosmetic, electrical, mechanical, pharmaceutical, optical, bearing and many other industries. Accuracy of counting can be 100%. This is very low cost highly accurate equipment compared to counting by way of weighing.

Feeding of half bearings or similar semi-circular parts is not easy and as these parts are very large in size, using a bowl feeder does not make since nor is it economical. Hence, Elscint has developed a unique feeding system for feeding of Half Bearings of various sizes. Half Bearings of upto dia 90 mm or even more can be fed through this system. This equipment consists of an Elscint Vibratory Hopper Feeder, two Elscint Linear Vibratory Feeders and an Elscint Small Parts (Conveyor) Feeder. The speed of operation or the feed rate can be upto 60 pieces per minute in an oriented manner. This Speed can be varied through a potentiometer. Electronic Controls are provided to synchronize the speed of the various components listed above. The Elscint Small Parts (Conveyor) Feeder is used for recirculation of unused parts. A special orientation device is used for orientation of the Half Bearings. Upto 150 Kgs of material can be loaded in the Vibratory Hopper. This makes the system totally manless and the operator can be utilized to do some other work. This system has been found beneficial to various Half Bearing Manufacturers all over the world. It has helped improve productivity by almost 100%. 

One innovative use of vibratory bowl feeders is to use them for automating riveting machines. Here the rivets are fed through a vibratory bowl feeder to the riveting station. The other part (spring, strip etc.) can either be placed manually or automatically from another vibratory bowl feeder. Alternatively, the strip can be fed through a de-reeler and cut as per the requirement and fed automatically. At the riveting point, the riveting takes place and the completed riveted assembly is blow out or removed manually as the case might be. For this a riveting machine has to be mounted on a specially designed platform. Other options which are possible are  checking of the spring / strip etc. before riveting, counting of the number of pieces riveted, automatic stoppage of machine when a wrong rivet / spring is fed etc. This type of automation can be used in various industries like switchgear and contactor manufacturing industry. Productivity increases tremendously with the usage of this type of automation. Not only does it eliminate / reduce labour but also the production as well as consistency of the component is increased tremendously. 

Elscint Automation has developed a innovative Rotary Feeder for feeding of coins. Various Coins having different thickness and diameters can be fed through the same Rotary Feeder with slight changeover tooling. The Rotary Feeder has a rugged design and is made in cast iron and lined with suitable material for better rigidity. An AC geared motor of Elscint make having variable speed is used. This helps adjust the feeding speed according to the actual requirement of the user. The advantage in case of a rotary feeder as against a vibratory parts feeder is that rotary feeders work at much higher speeds and thus a better feed rate can be achieved. Other parts that can be fed through a rotary feeder are bottle caps, cylindrical rollers, needle rollers etc.