Recently, I took a whirlwind trip through the heartland. During this trip, I had the opportunity to visit plants and equipment makers installing and using vibrators. While in the field, I encountered damaged equipment, including cracked hopper walls that had to be re-welded.
Too often, the vibrator gets a bad rap in these situations. However, in reality, the damage is a function of incorrect sizing or installation of the vibrator. So to clear up any misconceptions, here are three easy recommendations to prevent future equipment damage:
Sometimes a screening application cannot be solved by simply placing the product on the sieve surface and allowing the screener to do its job. For example, round screeners are designed to separate material by particle size. However, this simple process can occasionally cause problems or damage to the product and require the HK Ultrasonic Sieving System to properly separate the material, specifcally spherical material like solder powder (see picture).
What happens when spherical material is on the screen surface too long?
Damage or oxidization can occur to the spheres if left on the screen surface too long. Particle size separation is also very critical. More difficult-to-sieve powders fall into different categories based upon size: Type 4 (-400 +635 mesh), Type 5 (-500 mesh), Type 6 (-635 mesh), and Type 7 and 8 which have a slow sieving process.
The Model HK Incline
Recently, a customer inquired about a standard lab fine mesh ultrasonic sieving demo of his Type 4, 5, and 6 solder powder. Solder powder is generally very spherical and sieves very well when applying the HK Ultrasonic Sieving System to the screen surface. Our small lab models use 8” or 12” diameter sieves equipped with our HK Ultrasonic Sieving System.
Just as we thought, he called after a couple of weeks of working with the demo and said the lab unit was very efficient at sieving the powders. However, the length of time the powder spent on the sieve surface damaged his spheres. We explained that we will need to remove the covers off the screen surface in a much quicker time frame while still removing all of the fines.
Our suggestion was to try our HK Incline. To visualize, please check out the video below. The HK Incline is a very unique Ultrasonic Sieving System that utilizes rectangular screen frames and no mechanical vibration. We designed the HK Incline to rely strictly on ultrasonic energy to move the powder down the screen surface.
Model: HK Incline
Here’s how it works:
You load a small hopper/feeder with your powder and a small electromagnetic feeder feeds the powder onto our special ultrasonic rectangular sieve frames. While the ultrasonics are pulsing on/off, the powder is moving down the screen surface. The fine grain particles pass through the sieve either on to a second mesh or into a fine grain collection funnel. The oversized materials are discharged off the ends of the screen frames into collection containers.
Moreover, what we like about this style of equipment is the ability to adjust the feed rate and product yield. There is a little bit of magic on our end in designing the screen frames and adhering the sieve material to the frames but the end result is a very efficient Ultrasonic Sieving System. Check out this product data-sheet to learn more.
So, back to the customer. After trying out the HK Incline with the HK Ultrasonic Sieving System on his solder powder, he loved it!
Keep in mind, the HK Incline is not for every application. If you have a powder that agglomerates or does not flow well the HK Incline will not be effective. But if you have a fine, free-flowing powder the HK Incline could be your ticket.
Want more information about this product? Contact us today!
Eighteen years, hard to imagine, harder still to believe, where does the time go. 1996 was an interesting year for me, I was wrapping up my studies at Cleveland State University looking forward to graduating with my engineering degree. I’d just spent six months with my Army Reserve unit deployed to Haiti supporting the U.N. mission there, returning in time to start winter quarter. I still remember sitting at my dining room table studying for an upcoming test and getting a call from Glen Roberts of The Cleveland Vibrator Company. I guess I was engrossed in studying and really wasn’t 100% into answering the phone, I almost hung up on him thinking that he was a telemarketer!
There are a wide variety of vibrating tables available to pack material in containers. Flat vibrating tables or packers are commonly used for this application where an empty container is manually placed on the table, filling begins, at some point during the filling process the vibrating table is started to begin packing and finally you end the filling cycle and turn off the table. While this manual operation fits the needs of many operators, they may not be aware that there are alternatives that allow a more automated operation. 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:
Vibratory screening equipment comes in all shapes and sizes. While some are rectangular or round they all pretty much accomplish the same principle which is removing oversize particles from the desired product size. There are a number of variables that can affect the performance of the screens used on your screening equipment. In this blog, I will discuss a number of ways to optimize your vibratory screening equipment. Read More… Share this blog post:
Well, this sad news was released recently: “Worker Engulfed in Rail Car…” which made me revisit my prior post to dig into data some more. Once again, I went to the data set provided by NPR Buried in Grain. This time I looked only for “rail car” in the incidents and found two in the data set. While the two incidents in the data set both correspond to workers trying to clear clogs while unloading the rail car hoppers, this new incident does not. Its cause was related to the worker slipping and falling while loading the car. Either way, these incidents are terrible, tragic and preventable with proper safety precautions and training. Rail car vibrators are one tool to help prevent bin or hopper entry during unloading. I encourage anyone following these continued incidents to look into resources available from organizations such as the Grain Handling Safety Coalition. 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:
Vaccum Mount Series explains features and what sets Cleveland Vibrator above the rest – See it in action here!
Most everyone over, say, 25, knows that time seems to escape you way faster than you’d like. That certainly happens here at Cleveland Vibrator – you turn around and another year or two is gone and you wonder what the heck happen to it. I really felt that way here recently as we just finished up work on a new product. Sales has been pushing for a “Vacuum Mounted Vibrator Series” for a while now and I’m happy to say we’ve just completed work on the mount and controls for our 1200 VMSAC, air -cushioned piston vibrator and the smaller 1125 VMSAC.
I’ve been told that my last blog regarding the importance of wall thickness when utilizing external industrial vibrators for bins or hoppers seems to have struck a chord. I plan to expand on that blog by providing some recommendations for sizing external vibrators since I merely referred to a vibrator with proper force previously – and you just may have been afraid to ask!
Essentially, we need to apply enough external force to the wall of the bin or hopper to assist gravity in getting material to flow. While I previously stressed properly flexing of the wall to get the material to flow, we still need to determine the correct amount of force to apply based on the configuration of the hopper as well as the bulk density and flowability of the material. Read More… Share this blog post:
