Case History: Bin Activators

Forgettable Case Histories and Real Life Horror Stories from the Field #1.
Batteries Not Included - Some Assembly Required

Sometimes you don't know what you've really bought until you've gotten it home and opened the box.

This was the case recently with one of our customers who bought several bin dischargers on price and found they were undersized, incomplete and poorly designed, (See a copy of the following start-up report from our local rep in the area).

We offer our Bin Activators with a preassembled mounting ring as standard because in the vast majority of cases it provides the best value for the customer, ensuring quick installation and proper alignment. Many of our competitors take the approach that this is an option and apparently don't bother to explain to the customer that leaving it out can create an installation nightmare.

Of course, undersizing the unit to bring the price down is just irresponsible. And anything other than a simple maintenance gate mounted directly to the bin discharger will be shaken apart.

We did sell a large Live Bottom Bin and several HD-2 Feeders to this customer for a part of the process he felt was critical. Maybe we'll get another shot at the rest of the project after all.

Regards,
VIBRA SCREW, INC.
Eugene R. Wahl
President

Memorandum from Field Rep Bill Hollister, of Hollister Sales to Mr. Eugene Wahl, President of Vibra Screw, Inc.

Spent some time at the new plant in Butler, IN and saw how a lower priced competitor sold this job. Slicccck.....

To my way of sizing, they were conservative if not chintzy in sizing or should I say undersizing.

The slickest move seems to be that they quoted and sold the customer standard bin activators, without bolted seal rings and now the customer (and/or his installation contractor) is paying for it.

I watched as it took two men about four hours to install the flexible sleeve and two stainless steel clamps (if you can call a 1/2 wide s.s. band with a tack welded threaded rod with a s.s. coupler a flexible sleeve clamp) on a five foot diameter bin activator. Standing on ladders and trying to thread the sleeve and the bands through the hangers was a difficult and expensive job - cost a lot more than a seal ring!

The competitor also sends these bands loose and the installer had no idea how many of what size to install on what size bin activator. Now they are short and looking for more. Should leave a bad taste.

The competitor also has flanged the outlet; installed DeZurik knife gates with transitions to round stubs (12" to 20" in size) and added a channel for support to the handwheel off the vibrating portion on the larger (16 & 20) units.

During the original negotiations for this job the competitor had quoted the prefeeders that Vibra Screw supplied as part of this project and they questioned our sizing of these screws. They used a factors of .85 in sizing a screw feeder under their bin activator!

I explained to the customer that the feeder would in fact be 100% loaded and that if the guy who did the sizing worked for me I'd fire him.

Hope this information is of some value to you.

Regards,
HOLLISTER SALES
Bill Hollister
President

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