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.
Drugs, Sex, Rock and Roll and Industrial Vibrators! Well maybe not, how about pharmaceuticals, we still don’t make “those” kinds of vibrators, Rock and Roll and Industrial Vibrators. The common factor in this list is the application of vibration to accomplish a specific goal. As some folks that read these blogs might have noticed I’ve stated my interest in building acoustic guitars, in comes the rock and roll part, and as I state in my bio, “It’s still all about vibration, just strings and wood and not bulk material”.
Guitar building is an interesting adventure, the more I read and build the more the road twists and turns. I happened to innocently stumble down this path when my son off handedly asked me if I thought we could repaint his Strat. Well, since then it’s gone from building electrics to building acoustics. In both groups vibration of the strings and the support structure is critical. For many builders the goal seems to be to duplicate the sound and tone of what many consider the Holy Grail of acoustic guitars, “Pre-war Martins.” Part of the “magic” of these instruments is the materials used, building process at the time and the natural “aging” of the instrument. Aging as I understand, it is a combination of changes in the wood and the changes in the structure due to the vibration introduced by the strings. Read More…
While not as large of a figure as in Part 1, this number can sure add up over the course of the year for many manufacturers of bulk products such as powder metals, plastic pellets, bulk foods, metal parts and chemicals who can use thousands or tens-of-thousands of Gaylords in a year for packaging their products for shipment. At $30 or more per Gaylord box, that can translate to annual costs of $300,000 plus per year.
Why am I bringing this up? Because industrial vibration, most often in the form of vibratory tables, is a proven solution to reduce number of Gaylords, IBCs, or drums used to package bulk material shipments. Read More… Share this blog post:
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… Share this blog post:
I don’t know that having a sense of humor is a requirement for employment here at The Cleveland Vibrator Company, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt! Perhaps it’s a bit like the old Johnny Cash song about a boy named Sue; you’ve got to expect some off the wall comments when your employer is The Cleveland VIBRATOR Company! Hard not to be at some sort of gathering and someone asks what you do or where you work. Yea sure, Cleveland VIBRATOR, you can see them fighting back the smile and probably more than a couple of questions. I used to be in the Army Reserves and spent the last few years of my service in a school unit as an instructor and eventually as a course manager. Our mission was to teach soldiers who wanted to change career fields and get a new “MOS” or job skill. At the end of the “report day” once we’d in-processed all the students into the course we would have a brief introduction to the school, the course and the staff. We’d go around the class and have each student talk a bit about themselves, military experience and civilian career, always fascinating. After we worked through the students then the staff would do the same. I always got a kick out of saying, “I’m Master Sergeant David Strong, so on and so forth, I’m a mechanical engineer and work for The Cleveland Vibrator Company.” I always gave it a long pause and then added “and no…we don’t make hand held pleasure devices!” You can probably imagine the response. Read More… Share this blog post:
Valuing your worker’s safety and well-being are ideas that most can agree on is crucial for company success within dangerous industries such as Grain Handling. Part of my job is updating our Twitter Feed and keeping an eye out for industry news via shared stories and retweets by some of the most credible sources in the material handling industries. Recently, I have been seeing numerous stories about grain entrapment accidents and can’t help but wonder, why does this keep occurring when preventive measures are available? Read More… Share this blog post:
Many applications of industrial vibrators are for material flow in hoppers, bins, chutes, and pipes; or material settling and de-airing. However, we frequently come across customers that don’t work with dry bulk materials or wet cast product. Instead, they are looking to apply vibration to their process to “un-stick” their wet, sticky materials from the walls of their equipment.
If we relate this to an everyday experience, picture-grabbing ice cubes from the freezer for your glass of lemonade. You get a clump of them that bonded, and they won’t fit in your glass. So, what do you do? Apply a little energy to them with some impact force (bang them on the counter) and break those bonds. Cold lemonade success!
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.
Blinding is when there is a decrease in the open area of a screen due to coating or plugging.
What is Plug Blinding?
We will focus on plug blinding as it has become more prevalent due to the increase in recycling. Plug blinding occurs when you screen material containing particles with irregular shapes. Think of candy corn: if the pointed end falls into a screen opening and then gets stuck or plugs the opening, it can prevent the fine material from passing.
Eventually, the screen section can lose its screening effectiveness as more particles plug into screen openings. Since this material wedges into the screen opening, the vibration energy used to screen the material isn’t always sufficient to knock them out of the opening. For example, the recycling of plastics creates irregularly shaped materials that can plug openings, thereby adversely affecting screening. Our challenge is to find a way to reduce plug blinding to keep our screening efficiency and reduce the downtime cost to clean the screen deck manually.
