How to troubleshoot and maintain your feeder
Troubleshooting and maintaining your feeder to en- sure that it meters material accurately and efficiently to your process depends on a solid understanding of how your feeder operates. After explaining how three common feeders operate, this article gives advice on how you can troubleshoot and maintain each of the feeders.
Feeders that don't feed accurately typically produce off-spec finished products and require extended periods of downtime to recalibrate or fix, which can cost your company in decreased production rates and lost sales. If your feeder is specifically selected or engineered for your application and your process's upstream and downstream equipment operates within spec, then most feeder problems you're likely to encounter can be attributed to improper feeder installation, inadequate maintenance, or changes in your material, operating conditions, or process requirements.