Setting Things Straight
December 17, 2024 6:38 AM Subscribe
Do you have some bulk parts that you need oriented? You need vibratory feeder bowls! Want to learn more? Feeder University has you covered.
More tips for tooling your bowl, and a collection of 50 hand drawn diagrams of various part alignment methods from the Vibratory Feeder Company.
More tips for tooling your bowl, and a collection of 50 hand drawn diagrams of various part alignment methods from the Vibratory Feeder Company.
So, this feeder bowl . . . it vibrates?
posted by The Bellman at 6:59 AM on December 17 [2 favorites]
posted by The Bellman at 6:59 AM on December 17 [2 favorites]
Should I be happy the parts are finding their place or grief at the way the free spirits are cast into the pit until they learn their lesson? Apparently, I can feel both.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:22 AM on December 17 [3 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:22 AM on December 17 [3 favorites]
I am always really amazed at the ingenuity of these part-orienting things, that through guides and physical filters they just run unattended, spitting out the weird shaped parts all facing the correct direction.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:30 AM on December 17 [3 favorites]
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:30 AM on December 17 [3 favorites]
So... they go through all this sorting, then get dumped willy-nilly into a different container?
Huh.
posted by Archer25 at 7:50 AM on December 17 [2 favorites]
Huh.
posted by Archer25 at 7:50 AM on December 17 [2 favorites]
It's the journey, not the destination.
posted by the sobsister at 7:55 AM on December 17
posted by the sobsister at 7:55 AM on December 17
"vvvisssistttssts ouurr bbbeauauutttiffullll ccaaaammmpppmpmpussus"
This is exactly my shit, thanks for the post.
posted by phooky at 8:13 AM on December 17
This is exactly my shit, thanks for the post.
posted by phooky at 8:13 AM on December 17
I am always really amazed at the ingenuity of these part-orienting things, that through guides and physical filters they just run unattended, spitting out the weird shaped parts all facing the correct direction.
Right? Every time I see some new bit of industrial automation I hadn't noticed before, I'm delighted, and wonder again if in an alternate universe a wee cortex got really into it and end up in automation design. I daydream occasionally of someone managing to make a functional Zachtronics-style game about physical automation in this kind of context, micro- rather than macro-scale conveyor belt nonsense. Would be a nightmare of a physics engine to tame tho.
So... they go through all this sorting, then get dumped willy-nilly into a different container?
I flinched at that at first too! But I reckon that's mostly an artifact of demoing a process—in situ this is probably going to lead directly to another process step, either manual or automated. In a couple of the later videos in the post you can see examples of both, with e.g. someone picking aligned safety belt buckles off a line one by one for assembly or a picker robot grabbing and placing one aligned part after another off the terminus of the vibrator feed.
I suppose if you really really needed an exact count and also some sorting out of malformed parts, it'd work for that. Seems like a slow and expensive solution for that particular problem, though.
here is correct soundtrack
I was gonna counter with this vibe, but my main thought is that I should offer to put on some industrial music for someone sometime and just cue up a bunch of this specific brand of muzak and, I dunno, avoid ever being in charge of music around them again.
posted by cortex at 8:23 AM on December 17 [2 favorites]
Right? Every time I see some new bit of industrial automation I hadn't noticed before, I'm delighted, and wonder again if in an alternate universe a wee cortex got really into it and end up in automation design. I daydream occasionally of someone managing to make a functional Zachtronics-style game about physical automation in this kind of context, micro- rather than macro-scale conveyor belt nonsense. Would be a nightmare of a physics engine to tame tho.
So... they go through all this sorting, then get dumped willy-nilly into a different container?
I flinched at that at first too! But I reckon that's mostly an artifact of demoing a process—in situ this is probably going to lead directly to another process step, either manual or automated. In a couple of the later videos in the post you can see examples of both, with e.g. someone picking aligned safety belt buckles off a line one by one for assembly or a picker robot grabbing and placing one aligned part after another off the terminus of the vibrator feed.
I suppose if you really really needed an exact count and also some sorting out of malformed parts, it'd work for that. Seems like a slow and expensive solution for that particular problem, though.
here is correct soundtrack
I was gonna counter with this vibe, but my main thought is that I should offer to put on some industrial music for someone sometime and just cue up a bunch of this specific brand of muzak and, I dunno, avoid ever being in charge of music around them again.
posted by cortex at 8:23 AM on December 17 [2 favorites]
This was very cool.
Once upon a time, I worked on the line in a Revlon packaging plant. The first job on many lines was placing something onto a line in the correct orientation. For instance, taking a rectangular sample-sized perfume bottle out of a big bin of them and placing it so that it would feed properly into the machine that screwed the caps on. It took me a minute of watching this to realize the vibrating feeder bowls were doing the same job I'd spend so many hours on when I was younger.
posted by Well I never at 8:42 AM on December 17 [2 favorites]
Once upon a time, I worked on the line in a Revlon packaging plant. The first job on many lines was placing something onto a line in the correct orientation. For instance, taking a rectangular sample-sized perfume bottle out of a big bin of them and placing it so that it would feed properly into the machine that screwed the caps on. It took me a minute of watching this to realize the vibrating feeder bowls were doing the same job I'd spend so many hours on when I was younger.
posted by Well I never at 8:42 AM on December 17 [2 favorites]
Does vibration make you wobbly? Perhaps you're more attracted by magnets!
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:50 AM on December 17
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:50 AM on December 17
Ever since I was kid who went on a tour of a dairy, I’ve been fascinated by these kinds of machines. Automation, though both good and bad for humans, is like magic to me, who’s never worked in manufacturing. Back in the 80’s, Apple opened up a “fully” automated Mac factory in Fremont. Robots moved parts and pieces all around. Automated assembly, soldering, testing lines built the Macs. Except… There were two operations they couldn’t automate, so in each one, a human sat there doing a quick, highly repetitive action over and over. The machines had it easy.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:52 AM on December 17 [1 favorite]
posted by njohnson23 at 8:52 AM on December 17 [1 favorite]
Archer25… I was wondering the same thing, until I realized these are all factory demo machines showing what they can do.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:54 AM on December 17
posted by njohnson23 at 8:54 AM on December 17
> Would be a nightmare of a physics engine to tame tho.
On that note, now that youtube (correctly) understands these are my main interest, it just recommended a video about simulating these bowls to optimise the designs.
posted by lucidium at 9:35 AM on December 17
On that note, now that youtube (correctly) understands these are my main interest, it just recommended a video about simulating these bowls to optimise the designs.
posted by lucidium at 9:35 AM on December 17
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posted by Kabanos at 6:52 AM on December 17 [1 favorite]