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That fancy load cell I thought was a gimmick saved my butt on a pick Friday

Been running cranes for about 8 years now and always figured those digital load indicators were just another thing to break. My old man taught me to eyeball it and trust the charts. But last week I had a 12 ton transformer to set on a tight pad in Phoenix and the math was getting hairy. Borrowed a friend's load cell system for the job. That thing showed I was at 94% capacity on the boom extension I had to use. Would have guessed 80% tops. Made me rethink everything. Anyone else have a tool they wrote off until they actually had to use it?
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emma72
emma721d ago
Funny how we trust the old ways until we almost drop something expensive ain't it. Maybe the digital stuff is just another tool in the box, not a replacement for the eyeball.
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blairstone
blairstone1d agoMost Upvoted
Aw man, I gotta push back on one thing there. You said 94% capacity on the boom extension but really you should be looking at the whole load chart, not just that one number. The crane's rated capacity changes based on radius and how far out that boom is. If you were at 94% on the extension, you might have been over 100% on the main boom if you didn't account for the right radius. Glad it worked out for you though, that's a tight spot to be in.
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