High quality industrial weighing equipment is important for a great number of reasons in the food and beverage industry.
While many of these applications call for reliable and accurate weighing, these scales also need to have certain protection in place to ensure daily safety for the workers or technicians who are maintaining them.
Food industry scales and weighing equipment have hygienic standards that require frequent cleaning of equipment. The scales being used must be washed, often many times a day, to avoid contamination.
This can also be true in other industries such as pharmaceutical and medical as well. The washdown process of a floor scale can be tedious and time consuming, which is why a close look at the process is essential.
HOW MUCH WATER CAN YOUR “WATERPROOF” SCALE TAKE?
Your scale’s IP rating is very important since it will tell you what it will protect against. An IP rating is used to define the levels of sealing effectiveness against moisture and dust. These ratings indicate how much resistance there is to water and water pressure, which makes scales with a higher IP rating ideal for washdown environments. A lot of people throw around the term “waterproof” scales. Technically, they aren’t quite waterproof. In most cases, we recommend IP66 and higher for wash down situations with IP68 or IP69K the best choices. Sometimes you will also see NEMA 4X listed as a rating.
When scales require frequent cleaning there is also a lot of handling of the scale itself. Regardless of what type of scale, all should be frequently maintained by going through a thorough washdown and cleanout process, especially any scales that are weighing food.
Maintaining hygiene and compliance is crucial to daily efficiency. This “frequent handling” of the scales is also when you sometimes will see scales dropped or damaged, which is quite easy to do with a slippery and smooth stainless steel weighing device. Floor scales do not like to be dropped onto the floor while you’re cleaning. That is a great way to wipe out a brand name load cell.
WASHDOWN PROCESS FOR A FLOOR SCALE IN A PIT
In a lot of cases, cleaning stainless steel floor scales that are located in a pit the traditional way no longer works for creating an efficient and safe environment for those doing the cleaning. The traditional way of cleaning consisted of lifting the entire scale to clean underneath. This is likely a 300 lb item approximately that is being lifted.
LIFT DECK FLOOR SCALES TO THE RESCUE!
The Lift Deck Scale is an opportunity to bring a safer and more convenient solution to your work environment. The B-Tek Stainless Steel Lift Deck floor scale is ideal in heavy wash down environments, such as chemical plants, zoos and veterinarians, as well as food processing plants. The lift deck is equipped with gas shocks to help aid in the lifting process, making it easy to raise and lower by a single operator. The stainless steel pit frame allows for easy access for wash down cleaning and can help eliminate the amount of buildup that can become trapped over time.