The engineering behind a mechanical platform scale

When I was a kid, my mom always bring me to the grain selling station. My family has a farm and we grow many types of crops. After harvested, we sell those grain to a buyer. They use these mechanical platform scales to weigh the bags of grains, and I always wonder how these work. Took a mechanical major in university and now I can share my understanding of how it works to you.
There are some equations involved that I don't want to add if possible.
If you found an error in my videos or you know a better way of explaining, please feel to leave a comment, and we can discuss about it..
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#mechanical
#weighingscales
#animatedexplainer
#3danimation
#howitworks
#lever
#physics

[@quasar-ed]

💡 If you enjoy my videos and want to help me create even more educational contents, consider supporting me on www.patreon.com/quasarED. You can get early access to my content creation progress, and the upcoming project ideas. You can also suggest the topics you like most. About the AI voiceover, I don't even want to talk about it. I procrastinated too many days worrying about my voice, and after finally recorded, it sucks, no just in my opinion, even to others. So I gonna stick to the Ai voice for now since it sounds really well to convey my scripts and I just want to explain things.. so.. Thanks you guys for support...

[@yellowbacon69]

Don’t listen to others, your voice makes my day.

[@quasar-ed]

Thank you..​@@yellowbacon69

[@yellowbacon69]

@@quasar-ed never stop speaking

[@tannerbobanner9453]

Don't even worry about the AI voice! Once people see the quality and effort put into the videos, the fact that the voice is done by AI really doesn't matter. Great work as always!

[@Eckster]

Your video quality is excellent, and AI voices are so much better than they were in the past.

[@Eckster]

These videos always make me appreciate just how much thought and ingenuity went into even the simplest tools we use all the time. It's really easy to take for granted just how good we have it today.

[@quasar-ed]

@@Eckster yeah, let's keep appreciating these vintage machines..🤓

[@ranjankumarsahu998]

❤ my thoughts too

[@akaHarvesteR]

The brilliance of the platform design is that the dual lever arrangement of the platform means the load doesn't have to be placed exactly centered. The offset load just distributes the weight on both levers, such that the difference cancels out on the measuring arm. And as a bonus, the design ensures the platform itself always stays level even when loaded unevenly. It's really a VERY clever piece of engineering.

[@quasar-ed]

@@akaHarvesteR Indeed..

[@nayminhtet3772]

I'm from Myanmar too. It's great to see someone from here doing something of this kind, like explaining how things work and stuff bcz education is suppressed and rarely anyone has any interest in this kind of things in here.

[@quasar-ed]

@@nayminhtet3772 Thank you.

[@ashishshevkar]

Animation is too good it's perfectly helping your verbal explanation.

[@AnandKumarmeb]

Details in animation are subtle and appreciable.

[@quasar-ed]

@@AnandKumarmeb Thank you..

[@jagrutbhatt3301]

Very good explaining and info.

[@davidmattice3752]

Thanks being a small farmer when I was younger used one of these scales, and always wondered how it works,

[@manamsetty2664]

I had such a scale in my uncle's shop was always fascinated by it No one ever told me how it worked Thank you

[@quasar-ed]

Thank you for supporting us..really appreciate it..🤝🤝🤝

[@waltonchan3931]

Great breakdown and derivations of formulae!

[@quasar-ed]

@@waltonchan3931 Thanks..

[@billkraemer4710]

Fairbanks is credited with developing the “modern” platform scale with robust 1124 pivots and a useful 1000 pound capacity. But there were others in use that do predate the Fairbanks design. I have one, that while it functions, is used for yard art and a connection to my dad, his brother and my grandfather who were all in the weights and measures business. Yes, I grew up a shop rat and could disassemble these scales, perform repairs, and rebuild the such that they passed county inspection for use in trade - I was 13 at the time.

[@quasar-ed]

@@billkraemer4710 That must be an amazing experience..😯

[@31gane]

wow... @billkraemer4710, these experiences need to be shared and especially when one learns it without any top down curriculum push, it is a worthy experience ... a story to be shared to the world. And as you said, history of measures and metrology goes back very far and still a vibrant and interesting part of human history bringing together culture, education, economics, social values together....

[@raqibmadni4861]

Also great explanation

[@kevinbyrne4538]

Very nice animations. (No doubt the result of much careful and tedious work.) Thank you for your labors.

[@kulturfreund6631]

Highly interesting. Thanks for the great presentation. 🙂👍

[@raqibmadni4861]

Great invention

[@linggiman]

Subscribed.. Love this channel..learning fascinating engineering stuff 😊

[@quasar-ed]

🤩🤩🤩

[@leopardtiger1022]

Oh oh never expected this level complexity

[@bpark10001]

The digital scales are not as good as balances or platform scales. Digital scales use strain gauges to measure the force. These gauges change resistance with stress. This amount of resistance change is a small fraction of the total resistance. Other affects (such as temperature) also affect this resistance leading to large errors. The biggest problem is zero drift. To get any type of accuracy, the scale must be "zeroed" IMMEDIATELY before use. Mechanical scales can hold there zero setting accurately for years. Digital scales measure force, not mass. They must be corrected for the locality where they are used due to changes in earth's gravitational field. Balance scales compare forces of 2 masses in same gravitational locality, & are accurate anywhere without calibration. Mechanical scales also do not require electrical power of batteries to work. They are powered by the weights placed on them.

[@peterbonucci9661]

Many digital scales rely on a level surface. Balances do not. Since digital scales are a kind of spring scale, they share a lot of the same problems. I think it's possible to make a digital scale that doesn't need to be leveled, it's just expensive.

[@31gane]

Any measuring instrument is designed with a vision/goal to provide a reliable measure of the object under test (to be measured). Since measurement as a practice ties together people engaging in some socio-economic transaction, trust on the machinery/tool merely plays the same role of arbitrating justice so that both the parties engaging in the transaction can feel unmanipulated about the value that each commodity is valued for. Thus standardization makes sense. Thus techniques of compensation for physical disturbances, calibration, etc... have always become essential factors in ensuring the accuracy and thus compliance to a standard established. Thus standards become a prerequisite for a machine - especially measuring instruments/objects, calculating devices in order to convince people that the measurement/computation mediated by tool/machinery can be relied upon. This means, that the manipulation is zeroed. This means error is zeroed. To "Zero" thus means making the instrument isolated from its immediate environmental/social disturbances and manipulations. Electronic instruments rely on calibration which in turn is based on statistics of measurement to compensate for drift, and usually where ever more computation is involved, more derived measurement from sensors/transducers like strain gauge are used.... thus reliance on mathematics, algorithms, statistics for ensuring accuracy to meet the standards. Mechanical instruments usually distribute computation in physical form as notified in the video by providing minor, very fine adjustment screws/knobs that ensure adjustability towards standards... And in both realms the standards compliance and calibration has to be ensured by making the instruments inspectable by a authorities.

[@akaHarvesteR]

​@@peterbonucci9661it's possible to make a digital version of a platform balance scale, using optical or magnetic sensors to measure the position of the balance beam. It's really just adding a digital readout to the mechanical scale, but it can enable very precise measurement.

[@peterbonucci9661]

@@akaHarvesteR I figured there was a way to measure force at each corner and calculate the correct weight despite an angled floor. It would be a high profit feature, but i doubt someone would do it.

[@CountJeffula]

So much better than the garbage we see today at the supermarket produce sections.

[@salemnaser2213]

A very good video. Thanks.

[@roliveira2225]

Excellent!

[@tomaspecl1082]

Basically its two levers composed together in series.

[@tedzone5544]

Awesome video thank you

[@gloriosatierra]

Very useful for empire building. 🕯📜✍️🏼

[@harshapriyadarshana8680]

Awesome Video many thanks

[@tyrannosauruswrex123]

😊😊😊

[@redpug5042]

i'm curious as to why they didn't use springs or something to automatically adjust the weight on the end. That seems like it would make it a whole lot easier. You just put the item on, and an arm turns a certain amount based on the equilibrium of the force of the object and the string

[@quasar-ed]

@@redpug5042 Well, it was before the discovery of hooke's law which describe the law of spring. So spring scales are a little bit late. And back then people might not know how to make springs..

[@alexjohnward]

Technically, a spring based scale measures weight, while a balance style scale measures mass.

[@skeletala]

hello from Burma

[@pantherplatform]

Want to know who what used balance scales in less developed regions (like Chicago)?

[@narendergodara1992]

super👌👌

[@goranjosic]

It would be fantastic if this could be read by a human and not by an AI, or at least by a better AI voice that doesn't sound this mechanical.

[@terrybull3798]

I was about to say exactly same comment. Content was excellent, so I was willing to endure the voice.

[@H.EL-Othemany]

Well, he said that he's home country was Myanmar..soo..

[@ChandrashekarCN]

💖💖💖💖

[@glenrich-uu9zr]

The first attempt of human communicates with gravity before Newton.

[@derekofbaltimore]

i wish this video did a little more with the intuitive side of understanding the principles...

[@quasar-ed]

@@derekofbaltimore Isn't that intuitive enough?

[@derekofbaltimore]

@@quasar-ed i apologize, i dont want to sound needy but most of the video was equations which Im sure is necessary because the point of the creation of the scale is to find the specific ratios but Im one of those not so smart folks where math makes me lose track of what happening. It sucks and I should have tried harder in school. But i have a LOT of curiosity so I was hoping that the video would have shown like animations with arrows (arrows that grow and decrease in size to show the ratios and of course also showing the direction) and other suck things. None of this would give the precise reasons as to what the ratios would amount to but it would at least let me understand what is happening. Honestly, as a person who does diy, home renovations, and everything from developing my own board games to physical tools for fine artists, I came away from this video with no idea how the structure of the platform gives any benefit to the scale. I didnt understand the two levers or how the forces are directed through the tension wire. But again I recognize I may not be the brightest...

[@quasar-ed]

@@derekofbaltimore I am just like you. I prefer to learn visually and not interested in equations. But it was necessary for this video. May be I should add some more to how two levers work. Even though they are not the same kind of lever as balanced beam, you can think of them as balanced beam. If you look at my torsion spring example, you can see it has the same equation as simple lever. So you can change them into easy to understand lever systems. Near the end I showed that it is the product of two lever ratios. You can move the platform weight and its distance to the right of the fulcrum and assume as the extension of the beam. So in conclusion, the distance ratio of the beam get multiplied further by the distance ratio of the long lever with the platform giving us 100 to 1 weight ratio. I hope it makes sense.

[@pantherplatform]

No. I don't want to check and/or know my weight. Thank you.

[@quasar-ed]

😂🤣🤣

[@LNCMD2023]

Cam someone use this platform scale without worrying about the long and short levers, and not doing any calculations you presented.

[@quasar-ed]

@@LNCMD2023 Of course, all they have to do is read the weight. The weights have two numbers but you can read the larger number. And then add the sliding weight by reading the length.

[@bicivelo]

Can’t stand the computer generated voice on KZbin. I’m sure it’s a good video. I’m Just done listening to computers.

[@mynameisben123]

This one is pretty good though

[@negvorsa]

👎🤖🗣