Podmores have developed and manufactured a bespoke orientation system to handle two different sizes of glue stick containers. Our standard HDFB 2000 vibratory bowl feeder was specially tooled to make all of the plastic sticks come out facing the same direction. This enables our customer to easily handle the empty sticks in their manufacturing process and to filll them from another automated system.
The vibratory bowl feeder can handle the smaller size sticks at 60 per minute and the larger sticks at 50 per minute. When the customer wishes to change between the sizes they simply have to adjust two points in the machine which can be completed very quickly.
The bowl feeder was configured using tooling and not a vision/intelligent system. The extra weight at the black bottom of each tube forces it down a chute and gets it ready for output. If the white top end comes out of the bowl feeder first then it is light enough to attempt to pass over the chute and when it becomes unbalanced an air jet helps it to fall down base first.
This simple tooling keeps the cost down and means there is almost no maintenance required and the machines can operate continuously if required.
This bespoke system was specially designed for this application but similar systems can also be developed to handle products for the following industries: aerospace, automotive, chemicals, cosmetics, electronics, food & drink, medical, military, packaging, pharmaceutical, plastics, quarrying & recycling.
For more information, please contact us.