Create Weigh Bridge with Digital Strain Cards

A simple weigh bridge can be created using Mantracourt’s DSC (Digital Strain Cards). DSC’s can be housed individually, in a DSJ1, or in sets of four in a DSJ4. Both of these enclosures are simple junction boxes that have screw field terminal connectors for load cell input, Power and RS485 interface. Up to 8 DSC can be connected to a DS485DIS.

In this example 4 separate DSC’s are housed individually in DSJ1’s and connected together in ‘Daisy Chain’ using a 4 core cable back to the DS485DIS serial display.

The DS485 display allows the user to view the total weight on all four platforms as well as being able to view the individual platform weights. The total weight can be toggled between gross and a zeroed net display using the keypad.

The advantage of using RS485 and individually housing each DSC is that the weigh platforms can be spaced far apart with no loss of accuracy in measurement due to the long load cell cables – the RS485 bus carries the distance. The total length of the RS485 cable can run up to a 1000m.

The overall system can be configured and calibrated using Instrument Explorer over the RS485 interface.