A Feeder Bowl is designed to singulate and orientate product, but in order to do that it first needs to receive the bulk product. Rather than manually dumping the product into the bowl, for both efficiency and employee safety, the ideal solution is a Prefeeder.
Prefeeder Benefits
Prefeeders provide many benefits including:
- Consistent regulation of part levels, improving efficiency and productivity
- Less operator intervention and safe storage of the bulk product
- Improved overall ergonomics within a small footprint
Prefeeders come in a variety of styles. Depending on the layout and product, we can integrate either an elevator or hopper to handle the bulk delivery of parts to the feeder and optimize the efficiency of the entire system.
Types of Prefeeders
Hoppers
- Vibratory Hoppers –robust option that use vibration to incrementally add parts to a vibratory feeder.
- Live-Bottom Hoppers – storage bin and horizontal conveyor style solution that drives stored parts into a feeder
- Stationary Hoppers - gravity fed part storage bin that stages parts before entering the feeder
Elevators
- Drag-through Elevators - an industry standard pre-feeder (also known as a Drag-through elevator) with a low part-load-height, this solution is best suited for lightweight parts
- Vibratory Elevator - similar to a standard elevator with the robustness of a vibratory hopper, this solution is designed to withstand heavy or sharp parts
- Flat Belt Elevator - utilizes a flat belt and low incline to feed primarily delicate large, heavy parts
These Prefeeder options can be paired with our vibratory and centrifugal bowl feeders and other support structures. Each elevator and hopper Prefeeder solution is custom manufactured for the application based on customer needs and product specifications.
Contact Us today to discuss your Prefeeder options.
July 20th, 2022
Related Topics: Prefeeders
