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Paid $340 for a wireless load cell setup and it already paid for itself, but not how I figured
So about five months back I finally caved and got one of those wireless load cell kits for my rig after running mechanical for 12 years. Cost me $340 shipped from a place out of Tulsa. I mostly bought it so I could watch the readout from the ground instead of leaning out of the seat trying to eyeball the gauge, which honestly was dumb of me to do for as long as I did. First big pick after that was a precast vault section at a site off I-35, and the readout showed I was about 400 pounds heavier than my chart said I should be. Turns out my boom angle indicator was reading almost 3 degrees off. If I had kept going off the old gauge and the chart on the wall of the cab, I would have been over on a pick that felt completely normal. Getting that indicator recalibrated cost me $180 on top, so I'm in it about $520 total. Cheapest money I have spent in this trade, way less painful than the time I cracked a $900 outrigger pad on a soft spot two summers ago. Curious if any of you run wireless cells and whether you trust the angle sensor or still check it against a bubble level every setup.
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karen41017d ago
Gotta say I see it a little different. The cell told you the load was heavy, sure, but the real problem was the angle indicator lying to you, and a $20 bubble level would have caught that too if you were checking it. I'm not knocking the wireless setup, sounds like it saved your bacon, but the lesson here is really about trusting one gauge blind for 12 years, not about the load cell itself. You got lucky that the error pushed you heavy instead of the other way, because 400 pounds the wrong direction on a chart pick is how booms end up folded. The 180 for a recalibration is nothing, I just would not want guys reading this to think the tech is what saves you, it is the habit of cross checking that saves you.
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