Abstract: An automatic loader has a vibrational feeding assembly for vibrationally feeding ferrules to a loader of a ferrule assembling machine. The vibrational feeding assembly has a frame for containing the ferrules and a guide channel having a transport surface along which the ferrules are vibrationally transported from the frame to the loader of the ferrule assembling machine. A detecting device detects an orientation of each ferrule while the ferrule is vibrationally transported along the transport surface of the guide channel. An expulsion device expels the ferrule back to the frame of the vibrational feeding assembly when the orientation of the ferrule detected by the detecting device does not correspond to a preselected orientation of the ferrule.