Hello all, I need to measure the weight of a container over the course of up to 2 months. Would a load cell type scale be appropriate for this application? Would there be accuracy deviations over this time? Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance for your time.
Mike
Can you zero it periodically? Is this one of those Schrodinger's cat things?
Hi,
I developed electronics for precise strain-gauge based scales in the past (these are loadcells). They are very precise. There is one thing though with metals: creep. A long-term high force on metal can make it change very slowly. Check datasheets of loadcells for creep.
The creep will be seen by your scale as a very slow changing offset, so if you can zero or tare, the problem is gone.
Good loadcells like Hottinger have almost no creep. We used them to control in real-time dosing systems 100 kg up to 1 gram resolution, with almost the same precision. Notice the difference between resolution and precision. We also had systems that had a large load in a hopper that dosed by measuring how much material actually left the hopper instead of weighing the object the material was put in. So these hoppers had a large load and could be full for several days without any problems.
Regards, Pieter Hoeben
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