Wireless Load Cell Technology is Further Adopted by the Entertainments Industry

	Broadweigh load monitoring with Crosby shackles

BroadWeigh's exclusive UK partner, A.C. Entertainment Technologies Ltd (rigging division), has announced the supply of three full kits of 12-point load monitoring to UK-based Load Cell Rental, in a major deal to kick start the company's wireless equipment hire offering.

The BroadWeigh portable wireless system offers real-time, simple, effective, and accurate load monitoring for rigging professionals, safety officials, and site managers enabling them to monitor and log the precise loads on any given rigging point.

Central to the design of the BroadWeigh system are Crosby shackles equipped with a high accuracy, wireless load pin that reports data remotely to a computer or a handheld display. The system is able to monitor multiple load cells and can trigger an alarm should a load exceed a preset parameter.

Load Cell Rental's BroadWeigh wireless package includes 36 of the 4.75-ton load monitoring shackles, handheld displays for viewing individual cells, extended range USB base stations, wireless active repeaters, and BroadWeigh compact flight cases to house the three kits.

"A wireless load cell system was a natural progression, as wireless systems are anticipated to be very popular for dry hire use in all venues of live music, as well as being used for weight report services where time constraints are an issue at load in," says Colin Luke, operations at Load Cell Rental.

"Demand is on the rise due to the increasing weight of touring productions, as well as CDM regulations enforcement coming into play within the industry. BroadWeigh products have a reputation for robustness, and the simplicity of the load cell shackle and minimal effect on trim height was a major attraction."

The BroadWeigh system is increasingly being seen as a cost effective solution for entertainment venues, touring companies, and production suppliers, to provide essential measurements of force helping operatives eliminate overload risks. The BroadWeigh system has been developed in conjunction with entertainment industry professionals for real world work environments.

Load Cell Rental's BroadWeigh kit has already been used for a weight report for a major US pop artist's recent UK tour. The load cell telemetry worked well throughout the venues and they were used to record dynamic loads for a number of automated set pieces.

"The software is easy to use, once you have used it once," says Luke. "Production specifically requested a wireless system in order to ensure load-ins and load-outs were not delayed by the service, and were pleased with the performance of the system and its ease of installation."

A.C. Rigging's Matthew Millward, who facilitated the deal with Load Cell Rental, concludes: "With the growing scale of rigging in today's productions, it's a great comfort to know that load monitoring is beginning to become the norm for mid- to large-scale production companies."