The Current Situation and Development Trend of Electronic Belt Scales

In the industrial sector, the transportation of bulk materials often involves belt conveyors. When there is a need to know the weight of the materials being transported, the solution is to use electronic belt scales. Electronic belt scales are metering devices installed on belt conveyors to weigh the materials on the conveyor. They can measure the instantaneous and cumulative flow of materials without interrupting the transportation. The process of electronic belt scales is continuous and dynamic, making it highly efficient. This advantage has led to the rapid popularization of electronic belt scales, which are now widely used in various industries such as building materials, cement, chemicals, and grain, becoming one of the mainstream industrial metering devices.

China's electronic belt scales started relatively late. Despite rapid development in recent years, there are still many issues due to technological limitations and other factors. Electronic belt scales consist of components such as weight sensors, speed sensors, scale frames, and instruments, each of which can develop independently, resulting in uneven development levels and limitations for each component.

Issues include nonlinearity, hysteresis in repeatability, low sensor accuracy, and excessively high overload coefficients in weight sensors; changes in voltage and temperature due to wire resistance between the instrument and weight sensor, affecting weighing accuracy; and in the scale frame structure, the low measurement accuracy of single-lever scale frames; as well as in the calibration method, the low accuracy of hanging code calibration and the many restrictions and complex operations of physical calibration.

Despite significant progress and applications, electronic belt scales still face many challenges. Manufacturers and researchers must set clear goals to improve the quality, functionality, and capabilities of electronic belt scale components to promote longer-term development.

In terms of sensors, the overload capacity and sensitivity should be enhanced for long-term operation in harsh environments such as high and low temperatures, humidity, dust, and outdoors, with strong resistance to electrical and vibration interference. Both weight and speed sensors should focus on improving signal accuracy and stability.

For instruments, the trend is towards intelligence, computerization, and informatization. They should be easy to operate and maintain, with richer and smarter functions, such as various compensation functions, to improve measurement accuracy. Instruments are no longer just for computation and display but also have additional functions, akin to microcomputers.

In scale frames, the combination of multi-roller scale frames and suspension scale frames is becoming a trend. When the number of roller groups is the same, the multi-roller suspension scale frame combination is lighter in weight, has fewer force transmission links, no friction, and naturally higher measurement accuracy with less maintenance than other lever-type scale frame structures.

In the calibration of belt scales, the trend is towards easy operation, high calibration accuracy, simplicity, and speed. Automatic winch chain codes are a good calibration method, with accuracy comparable to physical calibration and operable by one person.

Considering the current situation and development trend of electronic belt scales, there is still much room for growth. To achieve long-term sustainable and healthy development, improvements must be made to the components of electronic belt scales, while also focusing on the coordination and unification of each component for overall development.