Feeding parts to machine by tubing???

[Gears4brains]

I'm an intern for a company that makes fasteners and other automotive parts such as ball studs for automobiles. I just recently had to design an adjustable feed rail that carries parts from a hopper down into the machine. There is a drop of about three feet over a distance of about four feet. At the top ball studs are fed into a 2 1/4" piece of conduit. At the end of the tube the parts drop into two parallel rails where they hang by thier head and slide into the machine. The problem is that the drop is too much. the parts fly too fast and don't fall into the rail right. If the parts are moving slow enough they fall in perfectly. I've tried everything from rubber strips in the tube to roughing up the inner surface by sand blasting to slow the parts down. On the other hand they can't go to slow or they will stop. I can't change the drop or the distance. Any ideas would be help I'm stumped. Thanks ME intern for 4 years. addicted to anything mechanical! Car nut.

 

[ve7brz]

Blow air up the tube against the parts flow?

 

[PSE]

If you parts are magnetic you could try using some magnetic strips to slow down the movement rate.

 

[Gears4brains]

Thanks for the replies! I tried using air, it works great, but it is too costly to use. The facilities said that I shoud find another way because it would cost like 5 grand a year to supply air to slow the parts down. although the parts are metal I can't use magnets near the machine due to sensitive electronics. What a mess! ME intern for 4 years. addicted to anything mechanical! Car nut.

 

[stressriser]

1)You probably CAN change the drop if you break it in two. One part of the drop is steep, while the second part of the drop is more gradual.

2) A vibratory feed mechanism can load the parts at any speed. Change the design to incorporate a small vibrating ramp.

3) Put some holes in the tube. Drop in small pieces of rubber to brush against the parts as they pass. You can add strips of rubber at intervals to slow the parts down, experiment with different durometers. Perhaps put in bristles from a brush that they can rub against.

4) Put in a gate. Operate the gate with a solenoid. This will stop the part for a moment before it drops.

 

[crispy1]

For your application, you have to use a conveyor, we design feeding system for industries, and we recomend to use a conveyor with bucket and like this it wiil keep the parts till they arrive at the level we want to drop without problems

if you need more information let me know.

Christian

 

[griffengm]

Don't know just how big your parts arew but I've seen a sleeve like a section of a panty hose leg used for this purpose. Change the tension on the material to change the feed rate.

Griffy

 

[Barry1961]

You may be able to slow the descent with a pivoting lever inserted in a slit near the exit. You cound and weight to the lever as needed and it would not be as sensitive to wear.

Barry

 

[BOBV]

It is a good standard in conveyance to gain control of parts early on and to never lose control of the part, or orientation. I don't know if you had control of the part in prior steps or not, but I thought I'd mention it.
I think I can imagine your part's front and side view and what you are trying to do. What I want to do is orient the part for the parallel feed rails. Because of the part geometry, or at least what I am thinking you are dealing with, that is, a round profile - a circle with a stud coming out of the bottom - I think you may need to feed the part to the rails at 90 degrees. In this fashion, you can use a little "kicker" to rotate the part to the proper location so the parts do not fall thru the rails.
Another idea is to change your tube to a curved rail, called a twister in some old conveyor trades.
Got any pictures?

 

[griffengm]

I've seen units that limit the descent rate by using a zig-zag chute. It can add a lot of distance in a small footprint. Also a spiral chute like a spiral staircase.
Put a helix in your tube.

Griffy

 

[wedgee]

Try using a small leaf spring to slow it down. Or you can use a set of small wheels that could feed it closer to the bottom of the tube.

 

[boke]

Well is hard to control any drops like that in general but!
We use similar *kind of* product at my place. We are sending parts from 2.5 ft box down to the machine under 70* degree angel and ~6 ft in the length and what we did was. We install on out feed part (last 3 ft of run) very soft brushes that slowly stopping parts from top of rail (tubing) on down fall. it's working great for us.
I hope this may give you some idea to work with.
wish you luck.

boke
P.S if you need more info be free to contact me.