Elscint Vibratory Bowl Feeder with Elevators for screws

Elscint recently manufactured 5 vibratory bowl feeders with elevators for each of them for feeding of screws. The requirement was from a leading automation systems integrator and the final customer was a leading automobile manufacturer. The scope was feeding of the screws in two outlets each (except for one which was single outlet). Each had a 600 mm long linear track as well as a hopper elevator. The loading height required was just 400 mm (which was accomplished with the elevator) and the number of screws to be accommodated in the elevator was 2000 nos for each bowl feeder. Additionally, stands were required for mounting of the bowl feeders and linear vibrators. All the 5 screws were of different sizes M4, M5 and M6. In M6 the lengths too were different, in one bowl feeder the screw to be fed was M6 x 32 mm while in another it was M6 x 35 mm. It was required to ensure that the wrong screw would not get fed in each of the bowl feeders. For this, poka yoke was made to ensure that even the 3 mm difference in the length of the screw was taken care of. Further, as there were two outlets, proper overflow arrangement was required in all the tracks to ensure that, in case one track gets full, the screws in that track fall back into the bowl. This too was ensured in each of the bowl feeders. Further, each bowl feeder was provided with a noise enclosure to ensure that the noise level is maintained below 70 db. As there were hopper elevators for each of the bowl feeders, a level controller was provided in the bowl feeders to check and provide low level feedback to the elevator, which could then be started / stopped. A level controller was provided inside the hopper of the elevator too to provide feedback in case the level of components inside the hopper too are less.

The equipment was designed, manufactured and supplied to the customer within the agreed time. You can watch the video of this feeding system and as well as this one and this one too.