I have to make a decision with my company to go with a truck scale or a loader scale. If you have any experiences with a loader scale, please let me know the good and the bad, or what to look out for. Any and all input is appreciated! Thanks in advance
I have not used them myself, but several of the smaller pits in our area have scales on the loader and they seem to work fine. After loading the operator prints a ticket and away we go. If the goal is to sell an accurate quantity of material I would think that having to calibrate only the loader periodically would be beneficial. If the concern is trucks being overweight, as long as they can get an accurate light weight I would think that outfitting one loader versus several or many trucks would be less expensive as well.
On-board scales work fine so long as they are calibrated regularly using a known calibration weight, the operators need to be trained on the best way to raise the bucket to get accurate weights every time, and last but not least the loader linkage needs to be well-lubricated and smooth moving. An autolube system helps.
We had a few 980's (F-K) with scales never could convince management to make up the test weight so it was a pain to have to go through the calibration then get a truck to dump load into and run over the scales. Just seemed to add a level of error, had to depend on scale operator to record empty weight the loaded weight and do the math then enter that into the loader computer. Next problem we had was if the loader was run for a day while the main operator was off the main operator would bitch about how the stand-in operator screwed up the scales. Claimed one time it would read way high and next time way low. Not sure what the stand-in could have done to cause that!:beatsme Then as Nige says keeping machine well lubed was a problem on the ones without auto-lube systems, some operators seem to have a severe allergy to grease! Either that or they feel the old saying: "The squeaky wheel get the grease!" is the rule for proper maintenance and just to be safe they will wait till the squeak is so loud they have trouble talking on the cell phone while loading trucks!:Banghead Do not want to put down the usefulness of the on-board scales but like any "tool" the person using or caring for it will determine how good it works. Give some ham-fisted ape a Starrett micrometer and he will use it for a C-clamp!
Nige is spot on .If installed ,calibrated and used correctly they should be accurate to between 2 & 5 % . It is important to be on reasonably level ground and not be accelerating or braking when loader height is close to reading point . Bucket should be crouded back fully .
A good friend of mine has two WA500 Komi loaders that he runs in a gravel pit. I think one is a 1999 and other is 2007. both he added the scales to. we do check them for accuracy a few times a summer and they seem to be very reliable as far as getting the correct weight. He also thought about a truck scale but you need to have someone run it all day. My buddy is a one man operation, well 2 if I am helping sometimes. it works well for him to have scales with printer in the cab.
The thing with on-board scales is that you need a readily-accessible known test weight that you can use to calibrate the system. We used to make them out of steel pipe filled with concrete. That way you can do a quick recalibration any time you like to make sure the scales are spot on. I would say an accuracy of 2.5% and maybe better would be easily attainable.
ive had them for about 13 years on about seven different loaders .they are not as accurate as permenate scales I would not what to sale off of them. scales are your cash register we have weighed over 100,000 trucks so if you look at it $1.00 per truck adds up pretty quick. they are just reading hyd pressure there are a lot of variables to keeping them accurate from the temperature of the oil to the habits of the operator to the way the bucket is loaded to the angle the loader is setting or bouncing. I don't think you could get them certified for sales.
The wheel loader scales can can be certified - legal for trade. The accuracy depends on the usage and on the operator. With a modern scale you can load with 1% accuracy. I installed a lots of scale, this is my job...
We recently installed these Loadmaster scales for a job we were doing for a local municipality. We wanted them as much for their record keeping ability as for weighing. Found them very easy to use compared to some I’ve used in the past.
I think that like many things, scales have their uses. When loading loose material from a stockpile in a gravel quarry for example, often on a concrete floor, no problem obtaining highly repeatable accurate results. Not so accurate in my experience when you put them on a production loading tool in a dig face. We used to consider ourselves lucky to get within +/-5% of true tonnage as measured by a certified weighbridge.
And I may have said this before the operator can have a major impact on the accuracy of the scales. Just like something like a torque wrench can be effected by the way someone uses it!
We had one years ago but they let it go when they traded the loader. I assume they didn't feel it was worth replacing
Most that have a weighbridge around here run loader scale to get very close before it heads for the door We run 2 loadrite's they work excellent for our use loading gravel when we do certain jobs they are checked against a weighbridge twice a day and with a consistent operator stay 2 percent and under error plenty close for gravel