Maintenance is one expense of truck scale ownership that is often overlooked until it is too late. While regularly scheduled maintenance is essential to ensuring your truck scale lasts, if the scale design leads to frequent repairs and adjustments, you’ll be paying for more than fixing your scale. Every time you stop operations to address unplanned maintenance needs, you’re losing precious operation time.

Not only should your truck scale have a durable design, you should also look for a manufacturer that incorporates features to simplify maintenance and prevent excessive downtime.

Access to Electronics

Bolt-on access covers can delay maintenance. Bolts can become frozen over or rusted in place, meaning technicians spend more time trying to gain access to load cells and electronics instead of examining and repairing them. Some manufacturers use boltless access covers to protect load cells and electronics. This design provides quick access to electronics from the top of the scale deck using a pry bar to lift the cover away from the rest of the deck.

Load Cell Cable Protection

Some manufacturers use sheathed cables outside of the truck scale module leaving the cables at risk for damage from rodents or harsh weather. This can lead to frequent and often non-warrantied repairs to the system. Ask your truck scale dealer about the load cell cable protection on each of the models you’re considering. Look for a manufacturer using built-in steel conduits to protect cables from rodents, crushing and harsh weather.

Mounting System

Many truck scale mounts require the use of check rods and bumper bolts to return the modules to center after each vehicle moves on and off the scale. This design requires frequent maintenance and foundation repairs to ensure accuracy and scale integrity. Some manufacturers have moved away from this costly system to a self-centering design that uses the force of the vehicle-loading action to re-center the modules on the mounts.

SURVIVOR® truck scales from Rice Lake Weighing Systems feature many time-saving features to ensure regular maintenance is quick and easy. From boltless, top-access covers to the self-centering G-Force™ Mounting System that eliminates the use of check rods and bumper bolts, SURVIVORs are designed to minimize downtime so you can keep working. Read more about the SURVIVOR Advantage and learn what makes them the Toughest Truck Scales on Earth®.