Made a "Forklift Scale" for the working poor

Most of the "Travel Lifts" that lift boats out of the water and move them around on shore use exactly the same device - a pressure gauge connected to the lift cylinders and calibrated in pounds or tons of weight.

So how much difference is there between creeping up and down? Inquiring minds want to know.

Dan

Yep. With the averaging of "up" and "down" readings it should be highly accurate.

Have you considered marketing this as a product?

I've worked on a digital unit for a local manufacturer of this kind of system, but a strictly mechanical product could be good too (but it's not going to be tying into IT stuff).

Friction depends on a lot of factors, such as load, how far the load is on the forks, weather (hot or cold) etc.

With a small weight of 2800 lbs, it was about 200 PSI difference.

When I lifted a forklift that weighed 12,000 lbs, it was more like 400 PSI.

They sell digital forklift scales, that are essentially a display and a microprocessor. I do not see how I can bring something new to this market. My scale cost me very little, but it is not a product that I could market.

You probably already thought of this but you will need to subtract out for the pressure to lift the forks empty, maybe paint a weight on containers you might re-use for a scrap bin.

RogerN

The scale to convert PSI to lbs, that I printed out, already has that weight subtracted.

On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 07:45:27 -0500, Ignoramus24728 wrote: SNIP

Hey Iggy,

That makes sense. I hadn't thought about that, even though I've done it !!

Brian.