Can we talk about those cheap load cells from Amazon? I learned the hard way.

I bought a set of load cells off Amazon for like 70 bucks last month. Big mistake man. I was running a 12 ton pick on a site in Austin and one of them gave a bad reading by a full 2 tons. Lucky I had a backup manual check or I could have dropped the whole thing. The guy I work with warned me about this stuff but I thought I was saving money. Now I'm out the 70 bucks plus the time to swap them out. Has anyone else dealt with cheap sensors failing on a job? I'm thinking of just going with a name brand next time but the price jump is wild.

2 comments

2 Comments

the_wyatt13d ago

@charlesanderson nailed it with that clipboard comment, cracked me up. Same thing happened to me with a set of 50 dollar load cells on a solar racking job. One drifted so far mid lift that the safety catch engaged and we had to redo the whole sequence. Quick tip: grab a pair of name brand shackle load cells from a rental house first to test the cheap ones against before you run them on anything real. Saved my butt more than once.

charlesanderson13d ago

$70 for a 2 ton surprise sounds about right, you basically paid for a free lesson in why we don't buy sensors from the same place we buy phone chargers. Hope the manual check wasn't the guy with the clipboard standing there hoping for the best.