Secure Legal-for-trade Weighing Systems in Open Automation Applications

Weighing technology plays an important role in many areas of logistics and in commerce. For example, legal-for-trade, automatic weighing instruments are often used when bulk materials are measured out or loaded.

HBK provides weighing technology components and systems to allow scales to be flexibly integrated into filling or loading systems. The digital weighing electronics and terminals are a typical example of this. The optional fieldbus modules used to implement the different fieldbus interfaces simplify integration into a wide variety of automation architectures.

Off-centre load compensation in a few minutes

The weighing electronics have an electronic compensation for the off-centre load error. To compensate for mechanical off-centre load errors, a load is simply placed on each corner. The process takes only a few minutes – a considerable time saving compared to the same process for analogue scales, which can last two or three hours.

Communication with control systems

In industry, measuring instruments are often integrated into automated systems based on a PLC via fieldbus or serial interfaces, for example Profibus/Profinet/ Ethernet/IP or EtherCAT. Modern HBK weighing electronics additionally offer a free-of-charge dot NET-based weighing API to transfer data and measurement results via standard Ethernet (TCP/IP) to a Windows PC-based application vie encrypted communication (https).  So-called automatic weighing instruments frequently work without intervention from an operator. The measuring process starts and stops automatically. So, as well as manipulation protection, it is particularly important for this type of scale application that the weighing technology can easily communicate with the controller over modern and secure interfaces and bus systems. This is firstly because it controls the functions of the weighing instrument, and secondly reads out the measured values and continues to process them.

Easily integrated digital weighing technology

HBK is a competent system partner for weighing technology, providing all the requisite components for legal-for-trade, industrial applications, from the load cell to the matching weighing electronics. Practically all industrial weighing applications can be implemented.

The extensive options of the WTX110 weighing terminal, particularly for communication, simplify the integration of weighing technology into a primary control architecture, such as one based on a PLC or PC, through to modern smart weighing technology in mobile applications.

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