When you supply a product that is the main drive source for a particular piece of equipment it, usually takes the first blame when the equipment doesn’t function properly. Such was the case back in July when one of our larger O.E.M. customers (Original Equipment Manufacturers) contacted us on a drive failure problem experienced by one of their customers who mine gold in Canada. The Rotary Electric Drives were mounted on a dewatering screener and per the end user customer they have experienced failure of 4 to 5 vibrator motors since May and normally they last for years. With Cleveland Vibrator on the nameplate of the vibrators, it was understandable the customer would look to Cleveland Vibrator for answers plus bear blame for their problems.
They contacted the O.E.M. who in turn called us to asked if we would call them directly. We followed up the same day and discovered with our initial conversation the motors were over 12 years old. This is a long time for a vibratory motor to last in this type of operation. Read More…
We worked with a local cement manufacturer who had asked for Cleveland Vibrator’s assistance on clearing up flow problems in 8″, 10″, 12″ and 14″ diameter flow pipes. The accumulation had built up over several years partly to moisture contamination through worn out seals in the pipe flange connections. Cleveland Vibrator visited their facility and quoted our SI Single Impact Air Knockers, due to what we understood was severe blockage in the pipes. We soon found out they intended to take down the flow pipes and hammer out most of the cement lodged inside.
One of our strong suits has always been the ability to manufacture special vibrators for tough applications. The mining industry can be a major challenge for any air piston vibrator do to heat, extremely dusty environment and just the harshness of the application to include operating the vibrators in a 24/7 operation. The Erie Mining Company in Northern, Minnesota had such a process. They were established in 1957 for the mining of taconite ore. The process involved taking taconite, which is a hard low-grade iron ore mixed in with nonferrous rock and grinding it to separate the low grade iron ore. One of the intermediate processes is screening for further separation. This is where Cleveland Vibrator came into play. Read More… Share this blog post:
From time to time you may have been faced with applications where the solutions offered don’t leave you fully comfortable to commit to a purchase. The solution may seem viable, but you just need that extra something before you can pull the trigger. While testimonials might do the trick, I suggest a trial or demo as a way to resolve your dilemma. Fortunately, some manufacturers offer trial units or demos that will allow you to try the specific item offered as a solution, or an alternate item that is similar enough to enable you to determine if the actual product is suitable.
People often contact us with unique applications where they believe an external vibrator might be applicable. Offering to send an air or electric powered vibrator on trial is often the best course of action if it is indeed an unusual application or the idea of trying it first is desirable. Read More…
Jack Steinbuch has been with The Cleveland Vibrator Company for over 36 years accumulatively. He has previous experience in the manufacturing industry as a Senior Application Engineer and has worn many hats on our team in sales and managerial capacities. Now, he’s in the position of General Sales Manager. With a BSCE from The University of Toledo, he is an expert in the realm of sizing vibratory screeners and feeders, and sizing vibratory drives for tables and other vibratory equipment. Understanding that customer service is crucial, Jack believes it is important to provide the proper product for every application, even if it happens to not be supplied by The Cleveland Vibrator Company.
In his off-hours, you can find Jack spending time with his family and playing with his grandchildren. He loves sports; both watching and playing, and is an avid golfer and a league bowler during the winter. He will be retiring at the end of September 2021 and hopes to spend his winters vacationing in Florida.
Being in this industry for a long time, we can relate to the uncertainty surrounding when you should grease your Rotary Electric Vibrators and how much grease you should apply. We offer an easy-to-follow installation and operation manual to our customers that discusses the specifics for each vibrator.
A section of the manual addresses proper greasing of the bearings, including when to apply the grease and how much to apply. The manual explains a ratio that takes into account the intervals vs. the actual running hours. This ratio will help determine when greasing the unit is necessary. There is, in my opinion, a “grey” area. Our Rotary Electric VIbrators need a certain amount of grease (measured in grams) to be adequately lubricated.
How do you determine the amount of grease for your rotary electric vibrator when the amount of grease per pump of the grease gun handle is unknown?
One method we’ve heard over the years is if the bearings begin to make noise, simply give each bearing five or six pumps from the grease gun and let it run for a few minutes. If this quiets the bearings after a few minutes, then you’re good to go. If not, repeat the process.
Is this recommended by The Cleveland Vibrator Company to properly lubricate the bearing? Well, no, it’s not. However, this type of greasing exists, and some swear by it. There is an old saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and if it works for some folks, then we would not try to change the way they do it. However, for a straightforward approach, we looked at the amount of grease generated by one pump of a standard manual lever-operated grease gun and headed to our testing lab.
We took our standard grease gun, which uses a 14.8 ounce/420-gram cartridge, weighed out how much grease was in one pump, and then converted it to grams. We checked what the standard amount of grease would be for a grease gun of this size. The amount varied from 1.25 grams per pump to 2.25 grams, depending on how efficient your grease gun was.
A quick note that the grease we use is PREMALUBE Heavy-duty NLG1 #2 Multi-Purpose Grease H2, the manufacturer is Lubemaster. If you are working with a pneumatic vibrator, we have a blog that outlines what lubrications should NOT be used for your unit, click here to check that out.
We took many circumstances into account when performing our testing of the grease gun in our lab, such as:
The greasing procedure is not perfect
The effect of different operators
Condition of the grease fittings
Environmental temperature
The condition of the grease gun
We went with 2.0 grams per pump, even with our measured weight being closer to 1.75 per pump. You can damage the bearing and cause premature failure of the unit, so it is essential to not over-grease. We concluded 2.0 grams per pump is best to prevent under-greasing as well. Refer to our RE 1200 RPM Rotary Electric Motor greasing chart illustrated below: “RE 80-6 Vibrator.” The chart indicates that adding 50 grams of grease per bearing after 1600 hrs, at 2.0 grams per pump, would be 25 pumps of the grease gun, and would add a plus or minus 10 to 20% facture to this.
You should note that you can also do half-life greasing which in the RE 80-6 case would be 12 or 13 pumps per bearing. We have included greasing charts for all RPMs below. Note that some models are permanently lubricated at the factory.
Need more information about the maintenance of your vibratory equipment? We are here to help! Click here to speak to our knowledgeable Sales & Services Team.
When I first started at Cleveland Vibrator in ’68, we had an “Oldtimer” by the name of Richard Placek who worked here and eventually retired from Cleveland Vibrator after over 40 years of loyal service. Rich was in charge of our tool and die area and among his many responsibilities was to build jigs and fixtures to assist in producing our many vibratory products. Along with that responsibility, Rich would work with our local pattern maker and make any final adjustments to our mostly wooden pattern equipment before sending it on to the foundry for producing sample castings. Rich Placek was indeed a very valuable part of the organization. Back then, trade shows were very important to attend and exhibit our products produced and sold by Cleveland Vibrator. Rich came up with an ideal to make-up some small keychain vibrator blanks and hand out to interested visitors at our industrial shows. Our customers liked the small key chain type units and comments were made about turning them into working models. Of course this was music to Mr. Placek’s ears and he started working on a Cleveland Vibrator miniature vibrator. It actually turned out to be the very first prototype Vibra-Mite Vibrator which is now our primary line of vibrators, VM-25s in particular. Read More… Share this blog post:
We were contacted by a company that performs a special process on large diameter copper bars. Part of the process is seating the copper bars in place to do the process. This is currently accomplished by hitting the bars with an 8 to 12 pound sledge hammer. Due to the taxing and power-filled motion of the hammering process, it was causing extensive shoulder and back injuries on their employees. The situation was dire enough that it required a call to action and a solution, so they contacted The Cleveland Vibrator for a vibrator recommendation. Read More… Share this blog post:
Like a lot of companies we talk a lot about customer service and going the extra mile when particular situations arise. Last week we had just one of those situations involving one of our larger RE 80-6 Rotary Electric Vibrators. The customer was in Texas and had a vibrator go down on a large de-watering screener. Fortunately, they had followed our suggestion and purchased a spare backup drive. They now wanted to order a replacement for that one but we had just recently sold all of our stock in that size to one customer. The drives are used on a critical piece of production equipment and could ill afford having a second drive go down.
With no spare available, we looked at up-sizing but mounting bolt centers would be a problem. We looked at different RPM motors with same bolt centers but after consulting with our equipment “GURU” Read More… Share this blog post:
The Cleveland Vibrator Company takes great pride in our Cleveland Quality products made with the highest finesse and expertise. Each Vibrator is individually crafted to fit every customer’s needs across a plethora of industries which gives us the ultimate diversity of our product line as well. The quality of our different vibrators, i.e. Air Piston Vibrators, Electromagnetic, Turbines, & Rotary Electrics, are superior to your run-of-the-mill vibrators due in large part to gaining such a in-depth understanding of the the many industries we serve through years of experience. Let’s be real, a company who has been in business since 1923 is bound to be more remarkable in quality than most, otherwise why would we still be in business? Once our products leave our shop, they are put to the test in the field – they are subjected to the tough manufacturing life where they operate day-in and day-out at high capacities, but with this something amazing happens to prove that Cleveland Vibrators are the best… Read More… Share this blog post:
One of our lesser known products known to be made by The Cleveland Vibrator Company is our Pipe Bracket Assemblies. As you drive down our highway systems you will see many manufacturing companies with any number of pipes in several different sizes transporting many types of materials such as sand, coal, many types of powders, dust collectors etc. Our pipe bracket assemblies are designed to assist in the flow of materials through those pipes. The design allows for the assembly to be moved up and down the pipe depending on the location of a material flow problem. We currently manufacture pipe bracket assemblies Read More… Share this blog post:
