Morehouse Force Calibration Adapters for Calibration of Lifting Devices such as Crane Scales, Tension Links, and Dynamometers
Figure 1 Morehouse Tension Force Calibration Adapters Quick Change Tension Member System
I am about to tell you a little bit about our calibration adapter history and what we have been working on to simplify your life when it comes to calibrating multiple force instrument types. We have a Bulletin 271-18 that has well over 100 different configurations of adapters for tension force calibrations. These adapters range from tension members for load cells to various types of clevis assemblies for all types of dynamometers and tension links. This large variety came about from forty-plus years of engineering where a new adapter needed to be designed every time a customer required a set of tension adapters to calibrate a tension instrument where we had not made an existing adapter.
Around 2011, we started thinking there had to be something better. The principal influence of the concept came from several lean manufacturing courses I had taken and the new ISO 376:2011; Calibration of force-proving instruments used for verification of uniaxial testing machines. The first iteration of the Tension Force Calibration Adapters Quick-Change adapter was engineered and made for load cell calibration. It was relatively simple to take what ISO 376:2011 recommended for adapters and make a tension member assembly with various adapters for the different load cell sizes.
Tension Force Calibration Adapters - Encouraging Customer Reaction
Initially, some customers grasped the benefit of paying a fraction of the cost for mating Tension Force Calibration Adapters, if they did not have the right thread sizes for a load cell they had not calibrated before. Plus we had the benefit of making blanks so we could make the parts fairly quickly. The downside to the system was that we had only solved a portion of the problem. Customers were loving the setup reduction, improved performance, and elimination of the clutter from their labs, but a problem remained. We had only solved one part of the problem. We had not solved how to calibrate crane scales, tension links, and dynamometers using one or two adapters.
This meant most commercial force laboratories still needed to acquire a vast amount of clevis-type assemblies for the various crane scales, dynamometers, and tension links that would come through their laboratory and these assemblies were very costly. For the next few years, we tried to configure various adapters and sold a Tension Member Adapter where the end-user could mate an existing Clevis from bulletin 271 with our new TMA set shown below. Though we had tried several times, we had not been successful in finding a solution to eliminating multiple Clevis Assemblies.
Force Calibration Adapters Dramatic Breakthrough
Most of us knew what needed we wanted to accomplish. We made a clevis with a lot of different pin sizes. Only one of the pins is straight through, and the rest is necked down at the center portion to fit different instrument sizes as shown in the picture below. The Shoulder Pins are made in two separate pieces (Shoulder Pin, and separated Bushing) to allow installation.
The whole assembly is then secured by a detent pin to ensure all forces are transferred to the Clevis securely. We have developed these versatile systems at different capacity ranges. With this system, force calibration laboratories will need to purchase only one set of clevises for most of their applications. Since the Clevis is the costliest part of a tension adapter system, this new breakthrough will save force calibration labs a sizeable amount in the long run, and in the meantime, keep the laboratory space neat and organized and free from the clutter of dozens of different adapters.
Force Calibration Adapters Kits
These Tension Force Calibration Adapters kits can be used with but are not limited to:
- Traction Dynamometers such as those manufactured by Dillon & Chatillon
- Dillon ED –2000, Ed Jr, and Ed Extreme electronic dynamometer
- Measurement Systems International (MSI) Dynalinks, Rice Lake, Eilon Engineering, Caston, Canflex, Straightpoint, IMES, Intercomp, LSI, Tractel, Strainsert, and others.
More Information on these force calibration adapters new clevis-type assemblies and quick change tension adapters can be found here:
A detailed product guide can be downloaded here
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Everything we do, we believe in changing how people think about force and torque calibration. Morehouse believes in thinking differently about force and torque calibration. We believe in creating solutions for Tension Force Calibration Adapters that save time and money. We challenge the "just calibrate it" mentality by educating our customers on what matters, and what causes significant errors, and focus on reducing them.
Morehouse makes our products simple to use and user-friendly. And we happen to make great force equipment and provide unparalleled calibration services.
Wanna do business with a company that focuses on what matters most? Email us at info@mhforce.com.
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