I enjoy movies and unfortunately for my wife, I’m not a particularly discerning movie viewer.  I can usually find some redeeming value in most movies, particularly if I get the DVD from the library, the dollar per laugh ratio is pretty hard to beat!  I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for spoofs, even today I still get a kick out of movies such as “Hot Shots, Part Deux.”  More than once I’ve felt like the character Dexter, the guy they sent the men in to rescue and then sent the men in to rescue the men they sent in to rescue Dexter!  Sometimes I have to exclaim “you don’t understand.  I can’t walk…..they’ve tied my shoelaces together.”  Oh well, such is life.

In a previous Blog I talked about “One Size fits all….Not!” and how Cleveland Vibrator ‘tailors’ our line of fabricated equipment to meet the specific needs of our customers.  We certainly continued to do that last year.  Looking back at 2014, my engineering drawing log shows that we generated 3d models and associated drawings for twenty different flat deck vibratory tables, FA, configurations.  The smallest vibratory table was a FA-1818 RE 220-6(2) (18 inch square deck size) to the largest being a FA-6060 (60 inch square deck size).  In addition to the FA style units we also generated six different grid top vibratory tables, GT, which interface with a customer’s gravity or power roller section.  One of these vibratory grid tables was of the WGT configuration, this is a vibratory weigh table where we incorporate load cells into the unit to enable the customer to weigh product and vibrate for compaction and do it all seamlessly.  In addition to the FA and GT configurations we also designed a couple of vibrator belt tables, BT.  Belt tables can be the most customer tailored pieces of equipment.  We can vary the width, length and height of the unit structure.  In addition to physical size of the table we can adjust the intensity and frequency of vibration with the selection of one of our rotary electric vibrators.  The dwell time of the product can be adjusted as it moves across the vibratory section of the unit by changing the conveyor belt speed.

In addition to the variety of configurations of our “standard” table the range of products that our customers want to vibrate is very broad.  Last year saw Cleveland Vibratory fabricating tables that compact and densify the more typical bulk material, products such as powdered metal, castable refractories, almonds, plastic pellets and copper chips to name just a few.  For the first time last year Cleveland Vibrator designed one of our vibratory belt tables to shake a residential sized ice maker. Our customer wanted to shake their product for a given period of time at a specified level of acceleration to ensure that all their electrical connections were solid and would withstand the rigors of transportation and still function flawlessly when installed.  We were able to tailor our “standard” belt table design to meet those demanding requirements.

In addition to the range of physical size and configurations of the tables, we saw a lot of variety in the vibrators used to provide the necessary force and frequency to get the job done with these units.  Most tables utilize our rotary electric vibrators, ranging from the small RE 3.5-2, 3600 rpm unit, to the much larger RE 52-4, 1800 rpm, unit.  We did manage to sneak in a couple of explosion proof vibrators last year for those jobs that required that level of protection.   While rotary electric vibrators provide a huge amount of flexibility in terms of force and frequency, we still had a number of units that utilized our pneumatic piston vibrators.  When the load is appropriate, the VMSAC, air cushion piston vibrator line, is a great option for a robust, cost effective solution for vibrating and compact a product.

As we look ahead to 2015 our plan is to continue to design and build the best fabricated equipment, specifically tailored to the unique needs of our valued customers.  Some goals for 2015 include efforts to streamline the process and get the completed product in the hands of the customer faster.  Add standardization where it makes sense and improves the product while remaining flexible to meet the needs of our customer.  The job might call for a small table top version of our vibratory belt table to compact almonds or a FA table large enough to compact 20,000 pounds of powdered metal, regardless of the application, one thing that is constant is the attention to detail and expertise that the entire Cleveland Vibrator Company brings to the table to solve the customer’s unique problem.  Personally, I’m looking forward to an exciting 2015 and plan to keep “shaking things up” – providing “solutions that keep you moving” with the appropriate application of the best line of pneumatic vibrators, rotary electric vibrators and tailored vibratory equipment.  And if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll figure out how to unknot those darn shoe laces!