BALCARRES, Sask. – All the test strips, yield monitoring and field mapping in the world aren’t worth a hoot unless the monitor is calibrated correctly, and calibration requires accurate scales.
Keith Stephens understood that long before he bought a fully wired global positioning system monitoring-mapping combine this summer. He knew he would either face long drives to weigh the trucks coming off the field or a major expenditure to install in-ground scales in the yard.
“I studied the yard and looked at where everything was situated, and there just wasn’t a good, logical spot for in-ground weigh scales,” he said.
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“If you’re going to spend $20,000 or $30,000 for a proper scale setup, you want it strategically located so semis can use it conveniently. Plus, I just didn’t want to spend that kind of money.”
It wouldn’t be a problem once the combine was calibrated for each field because then he could use the data to analyze his test strips and make the appropriate management adjustments.
“But to get the accuracy and meaningful numbers, you need four truck loads of the same grain, or about a thousand bushels, off the field. That can waste a lot of time if you have any distance to haul. But there’s no way around it. You need those accurate weights for a benchmark.”
So Stephens researched portable, aluminum pad scales. He found numerous companies that sold the type of digital load cell weight scale pads used at airports for checking load distribution on airplanes. These are the same pads used by highway departments to check vehicle weights.
He settled on four MD5003 pads from General Electrodynamics Corp. that were custom built to his specifications, could handle 20,000 pounds per pad and cost $1,300 US each.
Another $1,000 covered the cost of the computer to link the four pads together, a printer and a shock-resistant carrying case for the equipment.
Each pad is self-contained and has an accuracy of plus or minus one percent of the applied load. No external power source is required and they can be operated on uneven surfaces such as dirt or gravel. They sit about 7.5 centimetres high.
“Now I can take the pads out to the field and weigh the trucks coming right off the field or I can weigh the combine,” he said.
“Each pad is only 40 lb. so when I need to weigh other equipment, it’s easy to put them where I want them. And the price was reasonable.”
