Hazardous environment scales can range from those that are used to weigh caustic chemicals, to those that must be used in explosive environments. You must be sure that you are using the right scale for your application. There are different classes of hazardous materials: solids liquids and gasses; however they can all harm people, other living organisms and the environment. They are meticulously classed, graded and regulated by various federal organizations, such as OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and DOT (Department of Transportation) and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). There are 9 general classes of hazardous substances and various subdivisions meant to guide certain sectors of the construction, manufacturing and industrial business community how to best protect their work environments. As it pertains to scales, if you are dealing with an explosive environment, such as at a chemical manufacturing facility, paint blending factory, blast site or a weapons testing facility, you must carefully be able to weigh and control all the elements that go into your production. An explosive / hazardous environment scale must be intrinsically safe for use in a classified hazardous environment. In addition, it must be:
- Highly accurate: with a resolution of at least 1 part in 5,000, or higher if applicable.
- Highly durable: load cells made completely of stainless steel.
- Be of welded frame construction with no moving parts for maximum shock protection.
- Have a digital, easy to view and read display
- Be classified for use in the appropriate hazardous classification, and for indoor or outdoor use as your environment demands.
- Have a protective corrosive resistant coating if caustic liquids could come in contact with the scales platform surface, even if by accident.
Our ArlynGuard line of scales are built to meet or exceed the above specifications.
We also have Ultra-Precision scales with our Surface Acoustic Wave technology* (see note 1). Even though not Intrinsically safe for use in any classified locations, these super sensitive scales have an internal resolution of 1 part in 2 million! That is 20 times the normal scale resolution! If you are weighing very small amounts of certain substances, you can easily see why you should get an Arlyn Scales ultra-precision model. SAW technology is extremely accurate because it weighs the displacement caused by the load on the scale’s surface- not just the pressure it exerts on the platform because of its intrinsic mass. Our dedicated explosive environment scales are intrinsically safe. The ruggedness of their construction materials make them more appropriate to harsh environments than other types of scales. They are easy to clean, and remember that you can add our corrosive -resistant epoxy for added protection against harsh chemicals. Our digital readouts are not only easy to read because of their LCD displays, but they can free up some added time for you. We have developed software in-house that can be pre-loaded into your hazardous environment scale’s display. These can free time and prevent human error by automatically sorting, batching, storing (in memory), recording and transmitting all your measurement data wirelessly to a database on a PC. In addition to all these benefits is the price we offer. We design and manufacture all our scales in our facility, we can sell them to you at factory direct prices. Contact us today for all your hazardous environment scale needs.
*NOTE 1: Our ArlynGuard line of scales are specified to be Intrinsically Safe. However, the Ultra-Precision Surface Acoustic Wave scales (or SAW Scales) are not Intrinsically safe and do not fall in the ArlynGuard line. Please refer to our Explosion Proof scales for Intrinsically Safe line of products.
