Mettler Toledo Authorised Distributor
Weighbridges
Supply, foundation design, installation and calibration of truck scales for quarries, ports, factories and mines - engineered for how sites in Ghana actually work.
A weighbridge is not a piece of yard equipment. It is the till. Every tonne that crosses it becomes an invoice, a royalty figure, a delivery note or a customs declaration, and the reading is the only evidence anyone will accept later. On a site moving 60 truckloads a day at 30 tonnes a load, a bridge reading half a percent light gives away roughly nine tonnes of product daily - and nobody notices, because the tickets all look perfectly normal.
The disputes are worse than the losses. A haulier whose ticket at your gate disagrees with the reading at the port stops trusting both, and where the load is bound for export that argument becomes a customs and invoicing problem with a paper trail attached. Weighing equipment used for trade is expected to be verifiable, so keep the calibration certificate and test record for every bridge on file where an inspector or an auditor can see it.
None of that is solved by buying a heavier deck. It is solved by sizing the bridge to the vehicles that will use it, founding it so it survives the rains, protecting the electronics from the grid and the lightning season, and proving accuracy with certified test weights at handover and on a schedule after that.
Choosing a design
Almost every weighbridge decision in Ghana comes down to this one, and it is decided by space and by water rather than by price.
The deck sits above ground on concrete ramps, so every load cell, cable and junction box stays in the open air. During the rains nothing fills with water, there is no confined space to enter, and a technician can find a failed cell in minutes. The trade-off is length: the ramps add roughly 12 m to 16 m of approach, which a cramped factory gate may not have. If your yard has the room, this is what we recommend.
See the pitless weighbridge rangeThe deck sits flush with the yard, so trucks drive straight on with no ramps and can approach from more than one direction. That saves the approach length, but it moves the risk underground: the pit must be a properly drained, reinforced chamber with a sump and access covers. Installations that skip the drainage are the ones sitting in standing water two rainy seasons later, with corroded cells and a drifting zero.
Compare the pit-type weighbridgeSizing
Our decks run from 30 t to 120 t capacity and 6 m to 24 m long at a standard 3 m width. The rule is simple: the whole vehicle must sit on the deck in one movement, and the capacity must sit comfortably above your heaviest legal load, not level with it.
9 m to 12 m deck
40 t to 60 t
Covers a loaded 10-wheeler or a short tipper-and-trailer combination on quarry and cement traffic.
16 m to 18 m deck
60 t to 80 t
A tractor unit plus a 40-ft skeletal trailer needs the full length on the deck at once for a single legal weighing.
18 m to 24 m deck
80 t to 120 t
Plant movements and mine site traffic put concentrated axle loads on the deck, so capacity is chosen above the heaviest expected vehicle.
Where a site cannot fit a full-length deck, axle weighing is the honest alternative for internal overload checks - but axle-by-axle figures are no substitute for a single gross weighing on a commercial ticket, and we will say so at survey rather than sell you the shorter bridge.
Ground and power
The civil work decides how long the bridge stays accurate. Laterite subgrade behaves well when it is dry and compacted and badly when it is saturated, so foundations that were never drained settle unevenly and put a permanent twist into the deck. That shows up as a corner error: the same truck reads differently depending on where it stops. On low-lying or waterlogged ground we raise the foundation level, design a fall away from the bridge, and insist on drainage before the deck arrives.
Power is the other half. Mains supply on most industrial sites swings, drops and comes back hard, and the lightning season sends surges down long weighbridge cable runs into the junction box and the indicator. We fit surge and lightning protection on the junction box, earth the deck properly, route cable in conduit away from motor and welding circuits, and specify a UPS for the terminal and printer so a dip does not corrupt a ticket mid-transaction.
Harmattan is the quieter enemy. Fine dust packs the gap between deck and coping, and once that gap is bridged, part of every load is carried by the concrete instead of the load cells - the reading goes light and stays light. Clearing those gaps is a five-minute job that belongs in your weekly routine.
Timeline
We measure the approach, check the ground and your vehicle mix, then issue foundation and drainage drawings with the quotation.
Excavation, reinforcement, concrete and curing, supervised by us. This is the longest stage and the one the rains can extend.
Modular deck sections are set and levelled, load cells mounted, cabling run in conduit, and the terminal wired into a protected supply.
Certified test weights, corner and linearity checks, operator training, and a certificate before you weigh commercially.
Once the foundation has cured, mechanical installation and commissioning of a standard deck is a matter of days rather than weeks. Read more about how we handle the whole job on ourinstallation and service page, or plan the ongoing side withweighbridge maintenance and repair.
Scope
One quotation, one responsible party. We do not price a bare deck and leave the foundation, the wiring and the calibration for someone else to argue about later. As a certified & authorised mettler toledo distributor in ghana, the equipment and the parts that go into it are genuine builds.
Questions
The steelwork is not the constraint - the concrete is. Excavation, casting and curing dominate the programme, and heavy rain extends it. Once the foundation is ready, setting the deck, wiring, commissioning and calibrating a standard bridge takes days. We give you a dated programme at survey and tell you which parts are weather-dependent.
Yes, if it is specified for Ghana. The load cells draw very little power, so a modest UPS keeps the indicator, the PC and the ticket printer running through a dip or a short outage, and the system comes back with its calibration intact. Sites on generator get the same protection plus surge suppression at the changeover.
Decks are supplied in modular sections precisely so they can be dismantled, transported and re-erected. A move needs a new foundation designed for the receiving site, re-levelling, usually some new mounting hardware, and a full recalibration at the new location. We do this regularly for mines and road projects.
With certified cast iron test weights, not with a loaded truck. We run linearity, repeatability and eccentricity (corner) tests, adjust where needed, and issue a traceable certificate. Repeat that on schedule and you have the documentation your auditors, your customers and a verification inspector will ask for. See howon-site scale calibration works.
Tell us the heaviest vehicle, the space between your gate and the nearest building, and where in the country the site is. Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 5:00pm - emergency service on request
Send us your vehicle mix, your available approach length and the site location. We come back with a deck size, a capacity, a foundation drawing and an itemised price.
