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The 920i and Android Detect Caterpillar Abuse
Two axle scales, Rice Lake’s 920i® indicator and an Android™ smartphone document truck weighments to ensure any truck warranty claims are valid.
Mining is a tough industry. Day in and day out, the goal is to move as much material as possible. This is demanding on miners and equipment alike, both of which are prone to frequent breakdowns. For Ferreyros, a Peruvian company supplying Caterpillar® trucks to local mines, equipment failure can lead to enormous warranty costs. They needed to make sure any warranty claims are valid and not due to trucks being loaded over capacity, a tempting practice for mine operators
Ferreyros contacted Scale International Service S.A.C. (SISSAC) in Lima, where Jaime Raya came up with a solution: use two axle scales, Rice Lake’s 920i® digital weight indicator, and an Android™ smartphone to document truck weighments. The open architecture of Android’s operating system would make the app development possible. By mounting the 920i scale indicator in a Pelican™ case, the entire system would be portable and durable.
SISSAC developed the custom app to track all the needed information: truck ID number, gas tank level, engine RPMs at the time of weighing, number of front-loader scoops used to fill the truck, and weight on the onboard weighing instrument. This data is manually entered into the app’s prompts as the truck is parked on the axle scale. Because the indicator and phone are connected to the same Wi-Fi network, live weighments from the 920i weight indicator are captured by the app and attached to the truck’s ID.
This offered the ultimate portable, self-contained weighing system. SISSAC can transport the equipment to different sites to take instant weighments, ensuring trucks at any location are not being mistreated. Once back at the office, all data is transferred from the app to a PC where a report is generated, analyzing the weights.
With the increasing functionality of tablets, SISSAC programmed their app to be scalable to larger screens. Now, they can use their original Motorola Milestone™ or the new kid in the office—a Samsung Galaxy Tab™ with a larger touchscreen for easier data entry.
SISSAC is currently working on more improvements to be released in the app’s second phase. The future version will automatically capture all data from the truck’s computer to their Android device through the computer’s serial output.
Rice Lake’s 920i digital weight indicator and the latest mobile technology—a combination that’s destined to hit pay dirt!
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