In this video blog post, we dive into the different advantages of our feeding solutions to help you gain a better understanding of the right system for your particular production. We also dive into some of the aspects of our feeders that set WEBER apart from the competition.
Parts feeding is a huge part of our business. I say parts feeding because it doesn't necessarily have to be screws or nuts it could be other parts as well. We have two basic methodologies for our feeding. We have step feeders and bowl feeders.
The whole point of a feeding solution is to singulate the fasteners. You can’t send a pile of screws to a gun at any given time. You want to singulate those fasteners into an organized single-file line, singulate one off at a time, and send it to the screwdriver accordingly.
The step feeders really do offer a lot of advantages over bowl feeders. They are dead quiet; you almost never need a sound enclosure. There's a lot more real estate in the step feeder to put special options like cameras, color detection, etc.
Another advantage the step feeders have is since the step feeder works in such a way that only the amount of screws that are going to be fed are fed onto the vibrating, linear track. Instead of the screws running around in a bowl, around and around and around all day. The exposure the fasteners get to agitation is much, much less.
With bowl feeders, you can fill a bowl up with screws that are painted and by the time that screw ends runnin’ around in that bowl, that screw can be in the bowl for three days before it gets to the product. By that time, the paint could be knocked off of it. The step feeder does a great job of maintaining the integrity and the finish of the fasteners. We find that the screws are in much better shape coming out of the step feeder than just about any bowl feeder you can buy.
What we do is we take a look at the screw and we determine the best product for that screw. What does the screw look like? Is it sharp, pointy, or have aggressive threads? It might lead you more towards a bowl feeder. If it's more of a machined, thread screw or a bolt, I would definitely lead you more towards our step feeding solutions.
Another unique thing about all our feeders that we sell here is that every one of our feeders that leaves here, not only is it tested and tested and tested; but every single part on that feeder is blueprinted. What that means is that there isn’t a single part that we sell that you can’t buy as a spare part that will fit perfectly like the original. Usually, bowl feeders and step feeders have parts and components and escapements which are “handcrafted” or massaged or polished or adjusted a little bit at the end. It's those things that we stay away from because you can’t support them after the point of sale with parts. Usually, the feeder has to go back to the company that made it, and hopefully, the guy who made it still works there. Hopefully, he figures out how to fix it if something wears out or breaks. So, that is a huge advantage.
Everything that can be adjusted is documented here. If someone were to misadjust something that can be moved, all of those settings are stored right here in Mooresville. You can make a phone call, and we will send you all those measurements immediately from our service department. We also have pictures and videos of what the feeder looked like and how it ran before it left here for reference. That has really been a godsend for customers who have gotten themselves jammed up by adjusting things on their own.
We really enjoy making feeders, and we are very good at it. We get very high marks when it comes to our feeding technology.