We were contacted by a scrap yard owner in Central Florida who was having issues finding a viable solution to get their newly leased location up and running with minimum equipment to start hauling loads of metal in less than a months time.
Other scale companies said that it simply couldn't be rebuilt and the parts weren't available and new truck scales are on a 16-24 week lead time from order placement... But we knew we could get this one turned around for them in time.
The scale they had was an old "First Weigh" which was manufactured out of Sanford, Florida and Emery-Winslow had purchased the rights to the designs. Unfortunately none of the components were currently in production so we were on our own.
The main issue was the condition of the load cell stands under the scale deck, they had deteriorated to the point that they could not safely be left in service.
We took the best two we could remove back to our shop to reverse engineer the dimensions of the steel stands. The steel stands are for a First Weigh using some older Epelsa 50K double end beam loadcells that were sold under the "First Weigh LC32" name. The load sensors were luckily current available through one of our suppliers COTI CG-STR 50K.
We were able to have the new load cell stand designs completed and a local CNC shop cut and weld them to our specifications within 3 weeks!
While the stands were being made we advised the customer to clean up, reinforce and paint any locations on the deck of the truck scale since it has been outside in the elements for over 20 years.
While the customer was working the deck repairs we were inspecting and re-working the critical checking elements in the foundation to ensure the scale would be functional when it was installed back into the foundation. At some point it had been run into with some type of large tracked vehicle like an excavator that caused some bending and damage to the side checking stands.
Nothing a little hydraulic power and a sledgehammer couldn't point back in the right direction!
The new load cell stands were finished up with welding, paint, and hardware and they looked great!
Give us a call if you are looking for replacement load cell stands for a First Weigh or Fairbanks motor truck scale that uses the old Epelsa STR 50 loadcells. We can get a set of these whipped up pretty quickly!
Some small mis-alignments in the deck mounting (non structural) elements of the scale deck required some precise tweaking to get the deck plates to line up and bolt back in place properly.
We assisted the customer to move the scale decks back into the foundation and line them up properly. By this time the new load cell stands and hardware had all been completed and we were able to get it all put back together with plenty of never-seize and grounding straps.
The new stands were aligned with the scale deck and anchored in place and the grounding straps were connected from stand to scale deck. Wires were pulled through conduit tubing we had replaced in the scale deck and it was all starting to come together!
All of the cells were wired through the deck and a new remote weight display was installed on an existing post where drivers would be able to see it.
We installed a simple and easy to use weight display with a truck in/out database program and an EPSON TM U295 impact receipt printer. The digital weight instrument stores the full or empty weight of the vehicles and subtracts it out to print a net weight ticket for the truck drivers. This could also be connected to some PC software to send the weight digitally.
In all. the project was a massive success and we were very happy to be able to get the mission accomplished in the timeframe that the customer required. So if you have been told by other companies that it is not possible or can't be done, maybe they don't have your best interests in mind and are only thinking about their bottom line.