Practical Tips in Extending the Life of Your Brute Force Vibrating Pan Feeders

August 27, 2018

Brute force vibrating pan feeders are extraordinarily robust. Just look at the large horsepower motors, the steel-reinforced feeder troughs, and the larger-than-life springs. They’re built tough, as heavy machinery marketers like to say. All the same, it only takes an exceptionally heavy shock load, moving at speed, to cause damage. Now, limping along, the equipment’s lifespan is on a countdown to destruction. Surely, there must be a way to stop that clock?

The Custom Designed Approach

In this essential first-cut mechanism, continuous flow rates are everything. The high-velocity impacts are propagating, yet the equipment is carrying out its duties as a tapering feed engine. By customizing the design, the equipment matches peerless material handling aptitude with vibratory functionality. Think of a uniquely profiled payload. If the workings of a brute force feeder remain woefully unconfigured, then the abrasive forces it’s containing will eventually shorten the machine’s lifespan. This is why custom-built twin motor designs sport preconfigured vibratory stroke lengths, which rapidly shuffle coarse streams through customized feeder troughs and trays.

Brute Force Feeders: Life Extending Tips

Fine-tuning the feeder’s vibratory cycle, there are two settings. The weights on the vibratory mechanisms’ drive shaft are configured, with different shaft weights, which control equipment amplitude and frequency. With the to-and-fro motion gaining horizontal excitation, the vibrating pan acquires sinusoidal momentum. Further tuning the shafting alterations, the inclusion of a robust set of dampening springs boosts the feeder’s life expectancy so that the pan doesn’t experience clogging. In all likelihood, such media jams would prematurely end the trough and pan’s functional lifespan. Still, there’s one last niggling worry, which sees the naked steel warping.

Spare Parts and Disposable Liners

A component breaks free. Not to worry, a replacement part goes in before the next work cycle begins. Worn weights, eccentrically mounted on the motor shafts, are also replaced, perhaps during a recent predictive maintenance check. Impedance tests on the twin motors are worrying, and there’s a smell of burnt varnish circling the area. The motor windings are about to fail. To solve this issue, have the motors rewound by an expert. Finally, the heat treated pan and feeder trough are warping. Fit those surfaces with replaceable bin liners. The elastomeric coating absorbs the brunt of a rocky load’s impact, plus it can be replaced when its abrasion resistant base material finally weakens.

Chiefly, the head engineer wants an effective planned maintenance program in place. That program works alongside a custom-made equipment deck to screen large rocks out of high-velocity mineral streams. The program also replaces faulty motors and drive couplings, diagnoses and repairs poorly fastened shaft weights, and it configures the vibratory cycle.

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