Based in Long Island, New York, Arlyn Scales has been manufacturing weighing equipment for over thirty years. Our unique approach allows us to provide our customers with high quality, budget friendly weighing solutions. From our industrial strength strain gage scales to our ultra precision models, our products are durable, accurate, reliable, and entirely customizable.
Industrial Scales
From our ten pound capacity bench scales to our twenty thousand pound capacity floor scales, our industrial scales all have one thing in common Ð the most rugged strain gage load cells on the market.
The load cell is one of the most important internal parts of a scale. They are responsible for measuring the weight of any item placed on the scaleÕs platform. The most common type of load cell found in the weighing industry is the strain gage load cell.
Generally, these load cells feature a thin piece of metal, called a spring element, which is attached to the bottom of the platform and the floor of the scale. When weight is applied to the platform the pressure is transferred to the load cell, which causes the spring element to bend.
During the manufacturing process four thin sections called flexures are incorporated into the spring element. Strain gages, which are a kind of transducer, are bonded to the flexures and wired together to form a Wheatstone’s bridge.
When weight is applied to the platform, a chain reaction happens within the scale that results in the numbers you can see on the screen. Pressure on the platform causes the spring element to bend, which in turn causes the flexures to bend. When the flexures bend, the strain gages are stretched and the resistance of the gages changes. This change in resistance also causes a change in the voltage output of the bridge, which is passed through an analog-to-digital converter and sent to the display where you can read the weight of the object on the platform.
Unlike other companies that use load cells constructed from inexpensive materials like aluminum, which tend to wear out quickly and become damaged easily, we manufacture our load cells using stainless steel.
Stainless steel allows our load cells to stand up to the daily wear and tear that is inherent in an industrial environment. It also increases their accuracy by making them less subject to distortion.
Ultra Precision Scales
There is a special niche within the weighing industry that is currently underserved. This niche includes industries like chemical formulation, semiconductor manufacturing, paint mixing, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and other operations that require extremely small, sensitive measurements from their weighing equipment Ð industries where as little as one ten-thousandth of a pound of material can have serious consequences.
While many of these institutions use magnetic force restoration (MFR) scales, these scales are extremely expensive to purchase and operate. They’re also delicately constructed and subject to deficiencies in accuracy due to environmental factors like temperature changes, air currents, and surface vibration, which makes them fairly difficult to use efficiently.
However, we recently introduced a new technology to our line of ultra precision scales, which features theoretically similar load cell design as our strain gage models, but features high resolution transducers that utilize surface acoustic wave, or SAW, technology.
Featuring a special aluminum alloy that provides the desired hardness, spring characteristics, lack of plastic deformation, and temperature performance we require of a high resolution load cell, these load cells operate much differently than strain gage ones and as such, are inherently better for weighing miniscule amounts of material.
The spring element of our SAW load cells feature two transducers. One acts as a transmitter while the other acts as a receiver; each is placed on the opposite side of the spring element.
The receiver detects the surface acoustic wave coming from the transmitter. This wave is then sent through an amplifier that amplifies the wave and sends it back to the transmitter, where it passes to the receiver in a continual loop.
At rest, the frequency of the wave being passed between the transmitter and receiver is always the same. However, when weight is applied to the platform, the spring element bends and this frequency changes. Because the frequency of wave is directly proportional to the distance between the two transducers, we’re able to digitally measure the weight that has been applied to the scale.
SAW load cells are inherently more accurate because there is no need for an analog-to-digital conversion; the signal is always measured digitally. These load cells are also more stable over time, less affected by changes in temperature, and provide higher levels of accuracy and resolution.
Real Solutions with Arlyn Scales
Because we’re a factory direct manufacturer, we’re able to provide our customers with real solutions. Our factory direct pricing is just one way we do this. By eliminating the mark-ups that are inherent with distributors, we’re able to offer a higher quality product at an extremely competitive price. For example, our ultra precision scales provide the accuracy of a MFR scale at a cost more comparable to strain gage scale models.
Another way is through our ability to design and manufacture equipment that fits into any system you may currently have in place. Whether you need a unique platform size or capacity, a way to fully or partially automate some of your processes, corrosion resistant construction, a way to transfer your weight data to a computer or workstation, or any other kind of customization, Arlyn Scales will work with you to understand your situation and study the specs of your project before providing you with a complete weighing solution.
Customer support is always available to answer any questions you may have or to help guide you through the selection process. We pride ourselves on our ability to provide for you the scale you actually need without selling you the bells and whistles you don’t.
For clean, elegant, and functional weighing solutions, look no further than Long Island. Arlyn Scales is here to assist you with all of your weighing needs. Contact us today!
