Railcars, PLCS, and loadcells

HI

Anyone dealt with weighing railcars (train) by using load cells in combination with PLCs - while in motion - and being loaded?

Main issue would be with the actual load cell that is used on the track and the installation options surrounding these.

Thinking of Rockwell gear for PLCs.

Any comments, advice, pointers would be much appreciated.

Regards

S

Nope,

Never done that. Although I don't see why you couldn't. Lots of places use load cells/PLC's to monitor the quantity of materials in different types of storage silo's, etc. Seems like a straightforward application, to me. The PLC would give you the opportunity to set different tare values, etc. and make the whole system more "flexible" than, say, a canned weighing system.

I reckon it may be more flexible but not sure where that would be needed. I have not designed or built a system like that but have had to deal with many railcar and truck weighing systems. Its hard to beat Mettler-Toledo for items like this, their systems (if maintained and calibrated properly) can be/are very precise plus they offer multiple options if the info has to be sent to a PLC or PC.

If you get a chance goto http://www.mt.com/home/mettlertoledo.asp and checkout the products and the LIBRARY.

If you need to do a lot of this weighing, you may want to talk to your railroad about where you could buy a reader for the railcar ID tag. Each car now has a readable ID tag that, most likely, has in the ID the tare weight of the car.

If you don't get the desired info from the railroad, try contacting the Association of American Railroads in Washington DC. Surely, they could provide you with the names of companies that build these readers.