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Load Cells Maximize Weighbridge Performance

What is a weighbridge? By definition, a weighbridge, also known as a truck scale or weight scale, is a large, heavy-duty platform scale used to weigh vehicles and their cargo. They are typically found in industrial settings where large or commercial vehicles, cargo, and various materials must be weighed.

Weighbridges come in all shapes and sizes and measure the weight of various products. The heart and soul of a weighbridge is a sensor that provides the user with accurate weight data.

Traditional weighbridges often rely on mechanical components that can wear down over time, leading to slight inaccuracies. Interface load cells are incredibly precise and deliver highly accurate weight readings, even with constant use. This minimizes errors in measurements, ensuring reliable data for every weighbridge operation.

One of the most common weighbridge applications using load cells is measuring large trucks at weigh stops on highways and in transport centers. However, weighbridge load cells are used in weighing applications for railways, waste containers, supermarket scales, warehouses, test benches, heavy-duty equipment, and industrial scales.

Typical Weighbridge Use Cases

  • Compliance with weight limits: Many countries regulate transportation, including a vehicle’s maximum weight. For example, weighbridges ensure that trucks are not overloaded, which can damage roads and bridges and be dangerous.
  • Shipping costs: Weighbridges are used to weigh shipments to calculate accurate shipping costs.
  • Track inventory: Warehouses, shipyards, manufacturers, and distribution companies can use weighbridges to track their inventory by weighing incoming and outgoing goods.
  • Waste disposal: Weighbridges can weigh waste materials during landfill disposal by automating equipment to manage waste.

Our load cells support many weighbridge applications because we supply highly accurate and reliable force sensor technologies commonly used in weighing applications across all industries. We understand weighing sensors must be highly accurate and reliable to ensure precise data. Check out our weighing solutions guide to help select the right measurement device for your application.

Interface weighing solutions that make an excellent fit for weighbridge applications include:

Top Five Benefits of Precision Load Cells For Weighbridges

#1—Precision load cells offer superior accuracy to traditional mechanical weighbridge systems. This minimizes errors in weight measurements, ensuring reliable data for transactions, compliance checks, and inventory management.

#2—Reliability is vital in these applications. Interface load cells deliver consistent weight readings even with repeated use. This allows for dependable performance, which is crucial for tasks like batching or monitoring materials.

#3—Unlike mechanical systems with moving parts, precision load cells are reliable instruments that increase lifespan and reduce maintenance costs and downtime for weighbridge operations.

#4—Precision load cells offer a broader range of weight capacities. This allows a single weighbridge with these load cells to accommodate various vehicle sizes and weights, offering greater flexibility.

#5- Interface offers a range of highly durable load cells designed to withstand harsh industrial environments, ensuring long-lasting performance and reliable weight measurements.

Truck Weighbridge Solution

A customer owned a truck company and needed to record the weight of loads being carried by their trucks. They wanted a wireless weighing bridge to transmit, log, and display the results in real time. Interface suggested installing multiple WTS 1200 LowProfile™ Load Cells under a weighing bridge. When the truck drives over it, the load cells transmit the force results wirelessly to the WTS-BS-4 Industrial Base Station connected to the customer’s PC with the provided Log100 software. The WTS-LD2 Wireless Large LED Display also displayed the weight inside for the driver to see in real-time. Using this solution, the customer successfully measured, logged, and graphed the different loads their trucks carried wirelessly onto the weighbridge.

Interface has also seen applications, including the use of weighcheck load cells in machinery for bag filling, bottle filling, high-speed check weighers, multi-head packing machines, silo and tank weighing systems, and conveyor scales.

Interface is the perfect force solutions partner for weighbridge applications across industries. To learn more about these solutions for weighbridges and other weighing applications, please visit our Weighing Solutions Overview and Applications.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

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New Interface Case Study Exams Weighing and Scales

Test and measurement are used in the development and monitoring of manufactured goods across all industries. With a history of producing force measurement solutions for more than five decades, Interface has supplied a myriad of sensor devices for hundreds of thousands of different use cases and applications.

From the scales we use in packaging centers to the enormous weigh check equipment used in transportation, weighing and scale measurement solutions are instrumental in the successful design, engineering, launch, and maintenance of products and components.

Many of the earliest force sensors were designed for the purpose of weighing objects, and they continue to be a large part of test and measurement today. As products evolve and new inventions enter the market, sensors must maintain their durability, quality, and accuracy for large and miniaturized uses. Therefore, you see inventors and innovators turn to Interface today for sensors that are designed for use in robotics, IoT, and factory automation equipment used for weighing.

Historically, the only difference between now and then is that Interface has perfected accuracy in measurement across with an extensive range of force sensors models, configurations, sizes, capacities, and specification requirements that can measure weight at “jumbo” scale, as well precisely measure exceedingly small, minute forces as an embedded sensor.

Determining accurate weight is a key data point manufacturers need throughout a product lifecycle. Whether they need the information for transporting an object, lifting the object, or just creating a specification sheet, accurate data for weight measurements is fundamental for safety and function. This includes weighing single and combined parts in early design, weighing the manufactured equipment during assembly and production, using scales for weighing output with exact measure, as well as obtaining real-time weight in distribution and transport.

To accomplish this, Interface provides a host of load cells and instrumentation devices. Since our first load cells were designed in 1968, we have built millions of these products for engineers and designers that require the highest precision force sensors for accurate and reliable data collection in test and measurement (T&M). Our customers represent a wide swath of industries, products, equipment types, tools, and electronics that depend on us for proving accuracy, consistency, and reliability in performance in T&M.

In our latest case study, we outline four weigh and scale use cases that utilize Interface sensor technologies. Defined weight as a product specification requires extreme accuracy in measurement. Utilizing precision force sensing solutions and instrumentation enables product engineers and manufacturers to collect data and use it as part of the product design.

Accuracy Matters for Scales and Weighing focuses on weighing and scale applications used with heavy machinery, medical devices, operational containers, and distribution solutions. In each of these instances, utilizing weight in the design, build, and supply of these products is fundamental to each use case and the success for the product.

Weighing and Scales Case Study