Scale Recommendations

[Po Taters]

During this past season, our scale went awry and broke on us - giving us incredibly inaccurate readings for the weight of our robot and made us wait, with our fingers crossed, until our first regional to get our official weight. Thus, we are currently looking for a new scale - hopefully, the same one that FIRST uses.

Does anyone know the name of the brand and the model that they use? If not, does anyone have a recommendation for one that's similar? (A link to the scale would be preferred )

[Nate Laverdure]

Scale from a thread a few years ago.

[Po Taters]

Originally Posted by Nate Laverdure

Scale from a thread a few years ago.

Thanks for the link!

I tried searching for older, scale-relevant threads but couldn't come up with anything too useful. Guess I just wasn't searching with the right words.

In any case, Wow that's pricey!

[Dad1279]

Just an FYI, despite the calibration weights, we found the scales almost 1/2 pound different between events this year.

[Chris Fultz]

http://www.scalesgalore.com/ohaus_sd...ing_scales.htm

We have something very similar to this. We use it to weight assemblies and systems and the full robot.

To weight the robot, we put 4x4's on it, tare it, and then put the robot on.

[akoscielski3]

I know that this isnt the post you may be looking for but i'll post it anyways.

We have a platform scale, that we found to be pretty accurate. Though this may not be the case for all. Before you go out a spend that $600 you have right in your back pocket (like we all do) I would try and find an old used one. We got ours from the GM plant that closed in Windsor (at least that's where i think we got it). Point is try and find a scale that a company is trying to get rid of. They may be just getting a new scale or closing their plant. A lot of companies have scales that could be used. I know most plants will have one because they ship parts into/out of the plant.

Or your other option could be to get your current scale repaired. I obviously have no idea what happened to it, but it could just be a quick fix, that you have no idea how to fix. It could end up saving you so $$ in the long/short Run.

[Dale]

As a team who always seems to ship a robot weighing 119.9 lbs I wouldn't survive the build season without a dead-on accurate hanging scale. We used to have a cheap platform scale but found the weight varied too much as we moved the robot around on the platform. You'll see this at the competitions as well. With a hanging scale you never have to worry.

We have an older LED version of this scale which I got new on ebay for $250 five years ago. Just get one with 250lb capacity by .05 resolution. You won't regret it.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Dad1279

Just an FYI, despite the calibration weights, we found the scales almost 1/2 pound different between events this year.

I wasn't there, but according to our team we weighed in at 119.4 on Wednesday night at champs.

The next morning we went back to weigh again and were at 119.9, having not put anything on our robot since the previous night.

[akoscielski3]

Originally Posted by Cory

I wasn't there, but according to our team we weighed in at 119.4 on Wednesday night at champs.

The next morning we went back to weigh again and were at 119.9, having not put anything on our robot since the previous night.

well, thats a little different... cause all your weight was from the crumbs of Cheesy Poofs your team keeps eating over top of your robot

[Taylor]

If your school has a wrestling team, they may be willing to let you borrow their scale from time to time. We put a couple 2x4s on top of the scale, calibrate it, then set the robot on. The wrestling team scales are usually good to within a tenth of a pound, and they keep them accurate.

[thefro526]

I've used a scale similar to this one since 2006 for weighing robots: http://www.amazon.com/Pelouze-RUBBER...392618&sr=8-15

At ~$150 it's a worthwhile investment, especially if you take care of it and get a few seasons out of it. We added a 38"x28" piece of plywood to ours along with some simple brackets to hold the plywood to the scale and it works great for weighing robots.

One thing to remember when looking at scales is that you're limited by it's minimum increment and accuracy. Depending on what you get, this could lead you to be off by +/- a pound or two.

[scott]

447 uses a 4-pad Long Acre Racing setup. A mentor is kind enough to allow us to use his personal set. It is really nice to be able to see how each adjustment could affect the balance of the robot, and these came really handy this year to get the weight bias we were looking for. Pricey, but another option...

[Peck]

we use a shipping scale one of our sponsors (tx seagate) has.

[Nate Laverdure]

Also: you could take your robot to visit your local veterinary clinic. Vets usually have a large walk-on scale that should be kept very well-calibrated.

[lorem3k]

Originally Posted by Nate Laverdure

Also: you could take your robot to visit your local veterinary clinic. Vets usually have a large walk-on scale that should be kept very well-calibrated.

What do you mean it's only for pets? This thing IS our pet!