What’s a vibro feeder?

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A vibratory feeder is a device that uses vibration to “feed” material into a process or machine. Vibratory feeders use both vibration and gravity to move material. Gravity is used to determine direction, down or down and sideways, and then vibration is used to move the material. The material is almost always a dry material which, unlike a liquid, cannot go down the slope without the help of the vibration effect.

A common vibratory feeder is cone-shaped. The mass of material is uncontrolledly dispensed in the upper part of the feeder and a controlled dispense of the material comes from the lower part of the feeder. An example would be a pill bottling system. A large amount of pills are discharged into the top of the vibrating feeder. Gravity will pull the pills to the bottom of the feeder where they can come out one at a time so they can be counted. Once the correct number is in the container, the feed is shut off until a new bottle is placed. This way the bottles can be automatically filled by the machine with the correct number of pills in each bottle. The vibration in the vibratory feeder ensures that the pills keep moving to the exit into the bottle without becoming clogged.

If you’ve ever poured sand through a funnel at the beach and had to tap the funnel to get the sand flowing, you’ve experienced firsthand how a vibratory feeder works. Another common use of a vibratory feeder is to deliver material at a constant rate from an erratic supply. In an automated cement mixing operation, a bulldozer might feed a vibratory feeder with irregular loads of raw material which is then delivered to the process at a constant rate by the feeder.

The vibratory feeder comes in many shapes and sizes, but they all use the same principle, which is to feed bulk material into the upper section in an uncontrolled manner and pick up material from the lower section at a controlled and constant rate.

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