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…
There are many aspects to the working at The Cleveland Vibrator Company that teach you valuable industry lessons, especially when you are considered a “rookie” or “newbie” in the industry. I began my journey into the Industrial Vibrator world this past December and I am surprised myself as to how much knowledge I have gained thus far – particularly the impressive span of industries where vibration is highly valued in order to efficiently move materials through plant production. Being the Marketing Associate, it is part of my job description to photograph every piece of Fabricated Vibratory Equipment that leaves our facility. Coming into an industry that was completely foreign to me, this job detail quickly became incredibly beneficial in my learning process about Industrial Vibration and where I could find it in use.
My mom just had her 80th birthday the other day. To celebrate the milestone, one of my sisters and her husband are taking my mom on an Alaskan cruise, I’m sure it will be a great adventure. A few years back I had the opportunity to visit Alaska as part of a Cleveland Vibrator Company project, I was there to provide start up assistance and review the installation of a piece our equipment. From start to finish it was a very interesting application of mechanical vibration to assist in the compaction of a dry material. Throw in a trip to Alaska and it became quite memorable.
Cleveland Vibrator Company was contacted by a large engineering firm that was involved in a remediation project at a military installation in Alaska. The company was removing contaminated soil from the site. The soil was to be placed in steel containers and shipped off site. Their challenge to us was to increase the density of the soil, put more material in the box than could be accomplished with just “dumping” soil into the container. Read More…
Vibrator performance, force output, frequency, energy consumption and noise, all parameters that are of interest to our customer to some degree or another. At one end the spectrum we might have a plant maintenance supervisor who simply needs a vibrator as a flow aid on a hopper and isn’t particularly interested in the exact operating frequency and force output of the unit, just needs something that works, solves the problem. On the other end of the customer range is the user who wants to know force and energy consumption at a specific frequency. Vibrator sizing on hoppers as a flow aid is driven by the physical characteristics of the hopper and the material stored in that hopper. Read More…
We often receive calls from customers that need to make adjustments to the product flow in their vibratory feeders or screener/feeders. Our challenge is to determine what style equipment is being operated to provide the appropriate options. The following are three basic drive options which produce linear force that can be used to power vibratory feeders or screener/feeders. To clarify, a screener/feeder is designed to feed the material with that same vibratory action also serving to help stratify the material – Read More…
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:
