I recently started working on a machine with some homemade vibrating conveyor controls. Two of them I fairly well understand, they have a rotary motor and appear to use a glorified light dimmer for control. I assume that these motors run on 60 hertz and voltage reduces the speed. Could they be DC motors? Universal motors? The other two look like a plunger, I assume it to be a solenoid or linear acting motor. The controllers have an unidentified IC (approx 14 pins) and a SCR. They also have an analog input for amplitude that is connected to the PLC's DAC card. I am guessing that they also run at line frequency and the amplitude is controlled by voltage. Are my assumptions generally correct? Also, where could I find some common off the shelf items to control these motors? I have searched and I can only find vendors of complete conveying systems, they don't advertise individual components (as far as I have seen, anyways).

Any help would be appreciated.
Bill Sturm

 

For feeder controls, here are a couple of names that I know of:

Controlcraft http://www.controlcraft.com/

Bryant Control http://www.bryantcontrol.com/

 

You have it right. the solenoid type are used in mining feeders. As you say they are fixed frequency with amplitude controlled.
I think if you Google Vibratory feeders you will get a few hits.

Regards,
Roy

 

Thanks to all who posted so far, I am glad to have some links to people who sell just the controls and to have my assumptions confirmed. I have searched Google and could not find many details about the conveyor controls or even anyone who sells just the controls. There are plenty of hits for companies selling complete conveyor systems.

Bill Sturm