Knuckle Boom Crane Scale, Use on ALL your Lifting Equipment.
Does it really matter how much weight you are picking with your crane, so long as the safety systems are working and with knuckle pickers, they will stop when the crane becomes ‘overloaded’ anyway right?
Well, usually they do, it’s built into the mechanics of the crane on HIAB, Palfinger, Fassi, etc, they all have a form of ‘overload’ protection built into them for your safety. In spite of how protected you feel you may be, independent testing has found out that many small picker units will exceed the stability of the truck before you reach maximum reach/capacity.
Meaning simply that your operator really doesn’t get full use of the crane or capacity before it begins to tip over, and with some operators, smooth operating isn’t in their vocab so slewing (rotation of the crane), is very fast on knuckle boom cranes, add to that many operate the cranes beyond the rated slope capacity (5-7 degrees), when the boom moves, the momentum of the boom movement, the force of the load being suspended beneath and now dynamic loading of the boom = tipping moment being exceeded and…truck on it’s side.
How does the scale help you? Great question to be sure. For as long as i’ve been around knuckle boom cranes (HIAB and Palfinger directly), they have never had them, unlike a ‘stiff boom’ or ‘lattice boom’ crane, that has both LMI and A2B from factory, knuckle pickers simply don’t. It’s primarily due to the fact they have a built in ability to sense pressure in the system, once that pressure has been exceeded, the crane will not permit the operator to continue to increase the ‘load-moment’ on the crane, or go beyond the safety factor. If your system isn’t functioning properly or hasn’t been properly maintained, or perhaps someone cut the seal from the port relief and ‘adjusted’ it themselves, then…you get what you get.
Our portable load scales will firstly help you to identify what it is you are lifting, I can’t tell you how many times we do training and I ask everyone, ‘how much does this weigh?”, and everyone usually gets it wrong. Some by a bit, most by A LOT.
The scales are inexpensive compared to a damaged crane, + it allows the operator to verify the weight to the …load chart, something your operators NEED to be looking at more often. Mention this post and get 10% off of the scale purchase.