Inflight grain measurement

Has anyone ever come across a setup to measure the weight of grain as it is falling from an auger into a truck.
Regards Alan Case

Hi Alan,

Sorry, can't say I've ever done anything like that before. I asssume you want to control the amount of grain that is "dumped" into the truck based on weight?? What about having the truck sit on load cell and control the auger's movement based on the weight deposited in the truck??

Just my $0.02 for whats it's worth.

Andrew Evenson

we have a noncontact density meter for clinker.
Uses radioactive isotope cesium something.
Might work on lower density materials, you would have to allow for the speed it was falling at, should be fairly constant?

look here for details.

Grain Flow measurement

There are M/C (made in Italy and Japan(Toshiba i am not so sure at this time) that measure the flow of Grains, from there you can integrate to get the Mass or weight. I do not have the name of that M/C but could post it next time i am here.

I am not sure if that would help.

Or are you truing to get the compensation for infilght material to give a better stop command ?

Arc

Combines do that nowadays. Maybe you could call up your local John Deere dealer and find out how they do it.

There used to be a company called (I think) Triboflow in the states that had sensors for measuring particle flow in pneumatic conveying systems. You could try to find them, or you could contact a local pneumatic conveying system supplier and see what they have. Airzen, Roots, and Gardner Denver are suppliers of these kinds of systems that I think are available in Australia.

It sound like you need a weight feed system.
http://pia.khe.siemens.com/index.asp?Nr=9892


Usually this is done with load cells supporting the auger or from a belt scale. The system takes weight and conveyor speed as inputs to calculate a mass flow rate. The auger could be interesting to get a speed of the screw but I am sure it has been done.

I have used Mettler Toledo and the Siemens/Milltronics systems successfully.

Best of luck.