Component feeder apparatus and method

摘要

A feeder for feeding electronic chip components includes a hopper having a discharge opening at its bottom and having and an aligning path forming member for agitating electronic chip components. The aligning path forming member agitates the electronic chip components by its reciprocating movement within the discharge opening of the hopper. The reciprocating stroke of the aligning path forming member can be varied, and the stroke is controlled to be shorter when the number of electronic chip components remaining in the hopper is reduced. This allows the electronic chip components to be guided more reliably into an aligning path formed by the aligning path forming member, regardless of the number of electronic chip components remaining in the hopper.