Industrial floor scales ship all the time from our warehouses across the United States. If you're in the market for a floor scale, just sit back and browse through our website and we are confident we can provide you with a system that will meet your expectations and budget.
So, if you're in the market for a floor scale you need to understand a couple of basic things. A floor scale system or sometimes known as a "package" consists of a scale deck and a digital weight indicator that have been matched or calibrated.
The basic floor scale system consists of a scale platform which has diamond tread plate top deck and four shear beam load cells underneath. Those load cells are summed together in a junction box inside the scale platform. The junction box has a summing board inside that allows each load cell to be adjusted so that each corner of the platform scale is weighing the same. Then, a cable is connected from the junction box to the digital weight indicator. Most decks are painted steel, you can purchase a stainless steel platform scale but it will be much more expensive.
A digital weight indicator is calibrated to the scale platform and connected in the same junction box. Power is usually 110VAC or occasionally battery powered. Most basic digital weight readouts are going to have an ABS plastic enclosure. You can pay a little more money and get a stainless steel enclosed digital weight readout.
The floor scale itself can be various sizes, most are usually either four foot long by four foot wide but there are other options like 4'x6' or 5'x7' just to name a few.
In our opinion, there are about four different levels or ranges of floor scales out there currently in the market today.
1. Brand name high quality USA made scales you can trust. Names like Avery Weigh-Tronix, Mettler Toledo, Rice Lake, Cardinal, and Pennsylvania.
2. Mid Range scales that are a blend of import and domestic that are well built and backed by a USA supplier you can trust. Brands like Brecknell, Digi, Ohaus, Transcell, and CAS.
3. "Low cost" imported systems from US suppliers you can generally trust like the DSB series from Brecknell, Inscale, Optima and Weighsouth.
4. Cheap floor scales that are imported by companies that nobody knows anything about and sold by companies or auction sellers that nobody knows anything about.
Sure if you use a scale to weigh a pallet twice a year, yes you can probably get away with purchasing a lesser scale. But, if the scale is important to your warehouse or in other words an important part of the "flow" of your business, then we suggest you invest in a name brand floor scale that has a good reputation.
If you're placing 1000 lb pallets on your scale a few times a day or maybe you are placing 500 lb tubs on the scale periodically, then you can probably purchase a "light industrial" scale. However, if you are a busy metal recycling center who is placing thousands of pounds on your scales numerous times every single day, you really need to go ahead and invest in a truly "industrial" platform scale. Some good choices to consider would be scales like Roughdeck, Prodec, Clydesdale to name a few.
The reason is if we provide you a good scale you will purchase from us again and let's face it we've seen first hand what corners some overseas manufacturers are cutting (literally). We've seen things like using scrap steel to build floor scale frames, cheap load cells with no documentation, and digital indicators straight from China (you will need to be able to read Chinese if you plan on reading your manual). We do our best to avoid products that are like that.
Be sure you look at our informative flyer Floor Scales 101 (pdf file)... If you have additional questions, contact our sales department and we'll get the answers to you.
We get this question every now and then... and there isn't necessarily one right answer. The Rice Lake Roughdeck is generally a pretty good choice but in some cases it might be overkill for what you need. If you are truly on the fence, contact our customer service email desk and tell us what you are weighing and give us a little background about your situation and we will try to help you make a good buying decision. We can usually help you because we've seen a lot of floor scales over the years and they may all look the same but the platform scales are not all created equal.
