Has anyone got one or used one?
VOSA/Ministry used to or still use similar systems, ask them.
I work for Axtec the only UK company who specialise in axle weighing and have 35 years in the game so I’m getting the hang of it now!
I’ve certainly done more than my fair share of using portable weighpads over the years.
Portable weighpads are ideal for weighing 2-axle rigid vehicles if you want to do it occasionally and accuracy is not that important to you. They will not weigh larger vehicles accurately.
Even when weighing four wheelers, they can be hard work especially in poor weather. They need to be carefully looked after as dropping them or throwing them about will break them. Someone needs to make sure the batteries are charged regularly and the pads themselves will probably have a useful life of about five years.
You need to find some flat ground long enough to support the whole vehicle, VOSA use locations that we have surveyed for them to prove their flatness, you will need to sweep the area to make sure it’s free of stones because if your weighpad is sitting on a stone it will either not weigh accurately or the stone will be pushed through the bottom of the pad thus wrecking it.
Weighpads are great for some jobs but you need to make sure they are right for what you need as we have so many customers who bought cheap pads and wished they hadn’t!
Drop me a line for more details.
The man from vishay uses these to calibrate my weigher,when vosa used them on me i pointed out that unless they used the same size pads under the other3 axles it would be inaccurate ,they said the ifor williams trailer was over but they weren’t bothered ,funny that!. i have used some chrome pads made in the usa they are not electronic but mechanical rather like bathroom ones
Often think its a shame you can’t show the weight of the front axle of an artic as its not on air, in scanys you can tell the weight of all the other axles including the trailer, then you could tell your gross.
Normally the front axle of a unit gets lighter when loaded.
Silver_Surfer:
Often think its a shame you can’t show the weight of the front axle of an artic as its not on air, in scanys you can tell the weight of all the other axles including the trailer, then you could tell your gross.
If you need to know the front axle weight we can do that for you. Doesn’t matter to us whether it’s on steel or air.
Dan Punchard:
The man from vishay uses these to calibrate my weigher,when vosa used them on me i pointed out that unless they used the same size pads under the other3 axles it would be inaccurate ,they said the ifor williams trailer was over but they weren’t bothered ,funny that!. i have used some chrome pads made in the usa they are not electronic but mechanical rather like bathroom ones
VOSA have levelling mats usually. If you have one axle on the pad, the others will be on the levelling mats. If they didn’t have the mats then that’s the reason they weren’t bothered about the trailer overload. If they don’t do the weighing correctly, then they can’t prosecute.
VOSA don’t usually prosecute anything larger a 4-wheeler on weighads because as I said earlier, larger vehicles can’t be weighed accurately on them. They might though weigh you and give you a warning.