Abstract: A web former for a textile card or the like in which fibers in an air stream are delivered into a housing divided by a perforated plate into two chambers. The fibers fall to the bottom of one chamber and are formed into a web by three rollers. The plate is shaken by a motor to avoid build-up of fibers at the perforations and ensure that the fibers fall. A disc having sixty radial black bars is mounted for rotation on one roller to periodically interrupt the path between a light source and phototransistor to produce a pulse train which is applied to a counter and a monostable multi-vibrator. A logic flip-flop connects the counter and multivibrator to a relay controlling the shaker motor for delaying turning on the motor until the counter reaches a predetermined count but turning off the motor when the multi-vibrator times out.