How to Select the Right Forklift Scale

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. - Nov. 2, 2017 - PRLog -- A forklift scale will increase efficiency, eliminate wasted steps and provide accurate weight without the need to use a floor scale.  However, there are different designs with different advantages.

While forklift scales have been around for more than 50 years, they only came into popular use following the decision in 1998 by one of the major LTL carriers to begin weighing every pallet of cargo they handled.  Weighing each pallet helped to increase revenue and avoid overloading trucks.  However, the burden of taking each pallet to a floor scale was untenable as it would slow operations to a crawl. The LTL market quickly turned to the more efficient forklift scales—and the forklift scale market expanded rapidly for the next ten years.

There are three primary design families of 5,000 lb. forklift scales: hydraulic, carriage-based scales and other. For a number of reasons, the LTL trucking market was quickly dominated by the carriage-based designs.

The hydraulic designs struggled with accuracy and temperature interference. These designs rely on measuring the pressure in the hydraulic lines to determine the weight on the carriage. The best accuracy they could manage was 50 lb. grads while the carriage-based scales were 5 lb. grads and less. Hydraulics do have a significant cost advantage, with some units in the $900 range. The hydraulic fork truck scales have carved out a small niche as safety devices that help prevent or warn of overloading of the fork truck. They are generally not suitable for determining weights for shipping purposes.

The "other" category included strain gages mounted directly to the forks and other unique approaches. These designs lack the robustness needed for the LTL docks and were best suited for occasional users. They also failed to meet legal-for-trade standards for a decade or more. It isn't possible to combine these designs with side shifting fork positioners often used to increase efficiency in high volume fork lift scale applications such as LTL docks and distribution centers.

The carriage-based forklift truck scale designs use an electronic load cell suspended between two steel plates—a front plate and a back plate. These plates range between 1 1/8" and 1 ½" thick and tolerate the abusive high-volume environments of the LTL docks and distribution centers. Installation is simple. The forks are removed from the forklift truck. The scale is hung on the standard ITA carriage. The forks are relocated to the front plate. An example of a carriage based design can be found at www.forkliftscalesdirect.com

The load cells used in the carriage based scales are extremely accurate, commonly +/- 0.03% to 0.01% of full load. This creates carriage based forklift scales with accuracy as tight as 1 lb. grads on 5.000 lb. forklifts. The most common legal-for-trade scales are 5 lb. grads.

As a result, the forklift scale market has matured and "standardized" on the carriage-based designs, which represent more than 92% of all the forklift scales manufactured in the US.

Carriage-based designs provide durability, accuracy and flexibility that other designs can't match.  The logical next decision, then, is which carriage-based design will provide the level of accuracy needed at the cost you can afford?