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Case Study:

Medical Pin Feeder

H. Galow Co., Inc. needed a solution to automate the insertion of extremely small and hard to handle stainless steel pins into a long cylindrical rod for a medical application. The dimensions of the precision pins were 0.7mm in diameter by 2.2mm Overall length.

Micro fasteners and other small parts are often extremely hard to feed in conventional sized vibratory bowl feeding equipment because of the size, tight tolerances, excessive vibration, and the high degree of accuracy /adjustability required to guarantee a  100% feed out of the equipment. With tight tolerance parts, the danger of damaging or marking these expensive parts using normal feeding techniques is quite high. This application also called for accurate presentation of the pins into an escapement.

Seeing a need for micro feeding solutions, Weber Screwdriving Systems Inc. developed a feeding solution for small fasteners by utilizing piezoelectric technology. The science behind piezo technology incorporates piezoelectric crystals that vibrate at different frequencies depending on the electronic voltage & current being passed through them. Weber USA undertook the development of a new version of the piezo feeder which would gently move the pins using micro-vibrations and a nonmagnetic base which offers significantly greater control on the feeding stage. This allowed the Micro Piezo feeder to successfully feed pins very quickly into a sliding escapement that delivered the pins to the installation location.

With the new Micro Piezo feeder, Weber Screwdriving Systems Inc. is now capable of feeding micro fasteners with greater control and accuracy than our other feeding methods. These are parts and fasteners which are difficult for even a human operator to use due to their small size and handling limitations.

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