Platform scales are probably the most popular type of industrial scales available. They are used for determining the weights of packages for shipping and receiving, for filling liquids and powders into containers, for monitoring the amount of material left in a drum, and thousands of other purposes. A surprising large percentage of these applications involve moisture or other situations where the scale must be washed on a regular basis. These washdown scales are fabricated from stainless steel. While this increases the cost, these scales will survive for long periods of time as compared with standard platform scales.
1000 lb capacity washdown platform scales are surprisingly rare. While a number of companies, including Rice Lake, Fairbanks Scales and Salter Brecknell offer stainless steel floor scales with this capacity, they tend to be much more expensive, with larger platforms. Arlyn Scales seems to specialize in this niche, along with Doran Scales.
For these smaller capacity platform scales, most brands use a single load cell mounted in the center of the platform. This may somewhat limit the size of the platform. Arlyn Scales has chosen a different path by employing a separate stainless steel load cell in each corner of the platform. This allows larger platform sizes with the additional benefit of a much lower platform height. Anyone who has to lift packages onto or off of the platform will quickly learn to appreciate this benefit.
All of these choices offer a wide variety of useful options, including battery packs for completely portable operation, and RS-232 computer interfaces. Some unique connection options, such as Ethernet and USB, are offered by Arlyn, who also offers a USB data logging option. All of the platform scales have similar temperature specifications, allowing them to be used in virtually all industrial environments, including outdoors.
Pricing is generally considerably higher than the non-washdown platform scales. Because of the cost of stainless steel, the larger platforms generally sport a higher price tag. Arlyn Scales 320M-SS is an exception to this. Scale Compare assumes that this is a fortunate result of their choice to use four, corner positioned load cells instead of a single, larger load cell in the center. This design can be built without the heavier structures needed to support the single load cell. This translates into less material, and lower cost.
