I was processing a very nice order from one of our resale accounts in Texas and it reminded me of how we lost then re-acquired them and they have now become one of our better accounts. They started with Cleveland Vibrator back in 1994 and would order industrial vibrators here and there up to 1999, then simply vanished off our radar. Seven years later, in 2006, they contacted our marketing person at that time about purchasing weight covers for Rotary Electric Vibrators. I believe these motors were used on dewatering screeners. From what it would seem, one of our competitors would not supply this company with the weight covers and only wanted to sell them the complete drive motor. This simply doesn’t work since the weight covers serve two very important functions. One is to keep impurities and foreign matter out of the electric vibrator, not allowing the accumulation of the matter on the weights. Two, the covers act as a safety shield from anyone coming in to contact with the rotating eccentric weights. Read More…
Made in America, American Made, Made in the USA and my favorite Made with American Pride. We have all heard these words or seen them affixed to many great products manufactured by the greatest workforce in the world. “THE AMERICAN WORKER.” I’ve spent the majority of my 45 plus years being around manufacturing and have experienced the sense of accomplishment to produce a quality product that you can be proud of. This feeling cannot be measured in dollars and cents but in one word “PRIDE”. It’s still here and we just need to see it and believe in the fact we have the most talented work force out of any other country on this globe. We used have a sign that hung in our manufacturing area that simply read “Build It As If You Would Buy It,” and we added “If You Wouldn’t Buy It, Then Don’t Ship It.” I’m sure lots of companies have the same types of sayings hanging in their manufacturing facilities. The process of making a part, having it go into an assembly, then seeing it work for the first time has to give a sense of pride to the maker. Read More…
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…
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.
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…
“Bend, but don’t break” is an old football saying that refers to a defense that “allows” the opposing team to move the ball down the field on offense, but ultimately prevents them from scoring touchdowns. While it’s not a perfect analogy, you could apply this statement to recommending externally mounted vibrators to aid in the flow of material down hoppers, bins, and chutes without damaging the mounting surface.
Our challenge is to recommend a vibrator that will flex (bend) the wall or surface where it’s mounted to aid in the flow of material but not break it. Some people do not use certain external vibrators as they’ve had the bad experience of cracking the mounting surface. It’s easy to blame that style of vibrator, or vibrators in general, and look for some other method to get their material to flow. Here, I will explain how vibrators should be utilized without damaging the mounting surface.
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.
“What’s the amplitude of that industrial vibrator?” – I hear this question more often than one might think.
You’d think it’d be a simple question to answer. But, with industrial vibrators, it just doesn’t make sense and isn’t relevant to most applications. In my book, no vibrator has “an amplitude.” However, without a doubt, each vibrator model has unique performance characteristics that we can measure and record.
1200 VMSAC on pellet mill station bin
Once we understand the requirements for the application, like a vibrator on a bin or hopper to assist in material flow or mounted on a piece of equipment, the vibrator performance characteristics help our sales and engineering staff make the best recommendation for optimal performance. But you can’t say, “I need a vibrator with an amplitude of X,” and get several options.
What structure characteristics affect the amplitude of vibration?
When you start thinking about the amplitude of movement of anything with a vibrator attached to it, you’ve got to ask yourself several additional questions:
What’s the weight and wall thickness of the structure?
Is there isolation involved or is it rigidly fixed to a support?
Is the goal to move or compact material or just introduce “movement” in a section of the structure?
With vibrating equipment, it is relatively easy to calculate the expected “amplitude” of the finished unit while we’re still in the design phase. Using solid modeling, we have a good sense of the weight of the unit. Put this together with the performance parameters of the vibrator and we can accurately predict the expected amplitude of the finished unit. Take the weight of the unit, frequency of the vibrator, and its known force, toss in a conversion factor, and you can kick out a decent estimated amplitude of the completed assembly. This helps us predict the performance and capacity of the equipment, be it a feeder, screener, or compaction table.
What factors does the amplitude of vibration depend on?
When asked, “Hey, what’s the amplitude of the 1200 VMSAC Pneumatic Vibrator?” you can’t fire back, “Oh, it’s 0.157 of an inch”. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that way. Amplitude is not an independent parameter of the vibrator. Amplitude depends on two factors:
The structure to which the vibrator is mounted
The freedom of movement of that structure
What hopper characteristics are important for industrial vibrator installation?
Frequently, the customer is trying to improve bulk material flow in a storage container. Typically, the amplitude of the vibrator doesn’t solve bulk material flow problems. Over the company’s history, The Cleveland Vibrator Company has developed sizing charts and guidelines for hopper applications; this involves the characteristics of the hopper, including the following:
Hopper wall thickness
Volume of the hopper
Sometimes material type, if it is difficult to move or sticky
I can’t recall anyone in sales or engineering telling a customer they need a specific vibration amplitude. There are times when the nature of the material will lead us to recommend a “larger stroke or amplitude.” With rotary electric vibrators, this translates to a lower frequency vibrator, resulting in larger vibration amplitude. Given the same force output, a slower frequency vibrator will produce a larger amplitude or stroke when compared to a higher frequency vibrator on the same structure.
Turbomite Turbine Vibrator
As a side note, this relation leads to one of our primary design considerations for our Turbomite Pneumatic Turbine Vibrator line. You will notice we produce forces similar to our competitors at much lower frequencies.
The application of industrial vibrators is rarely an exact science – here’s how we can help!
There are many years of experience here at The Cleveland Vibrator Company. Folks have seen and heard about hundreds, if not thousands, of applications over the years. But what keeps things interesting is the challenge of a new application where you need to explore your options.
We can reach back into the knowledge base and make a good recommendation more often than not. If that doesn’t seem to be the best route, we can generate a computer solid model and run an FEA analysis. This may give us a better prediction of the amplitude of a vibrator-structure assembly. But let’s not use that approach to apply a VM-25 Air Piston Vibrator on a thin-walled hopper section. It’s probably more cost-effective to simply buy one and try one! On the other hand, you could always ask about our 30 day trial period.
