Skeptical about those Chinese load cells until a job in Cleveland

I was running a 50 ton crawler last month and had to swap out a load cell last minute because my usual brand was backordered. Picked up a knockoff from a local supply house for $80 and it held dead accurate through a 12 hour shift lifting steel beams. Has anyone else tried the cheap sensors and had them actually work out?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamiesullivan14d ago

Had a similar thing happen on a job in Pittsburgh last year. Grabbed a cheapie from the back of a truck at a supply shop and figured I'd be swapping it out by lunch but that little thing just kept chugging along like it was built for the work. I was half expecting it to crap out the second I hooked it up but nope, it was dead nuts accurate for three straight days of heavy picks. Makes you wonder how much we're really paying for the name on the box vs the actual performance.

brian_hart14d ago

Nah you're not wrong. Name brands are just a tax on the worried.

the_elizabeth14d ago

Hold on, I gotta push back here. You guys are talking like a single good shift proves anything. That $80 load cell worked for twelve hours, sure, but what about next month when the temperature drops or the humidity kicks in? I've seen cheap sensors drift so bad they'd have you lifting a beam into a wall instead of the truck. @brian_hart calls it a "tax on the worried," but I call it paying for consistency over time. A fluke good day doesn't mean cheap junk is suddenly reliable, it means you got lucky once. I'd rather pay the tax than have a load shift because a knockoff decided to lie to me at the worst possible moment.