Doran Digital Scales with Grading Food Processing are available at Central Carolina Scale Electronic Scales Catalog

Grading Scale Operation -- Standard on Doran Excel scales

Over 30 years ago, Doran introduced the industry's first Stainless Steel Checkweigher. Today, Doran is blazing new territory with the new, exciting and powerful features of the Excel board found in the 7400, 7000XL, 8000XL, and 4300. Once again, Doran is "changing the way we weigh" with the new "Grading Feature" which is paving a way for many customers to accelerate their weighing applications. Doran's grading feature is growing in popularity among scale end users.

Grading is a common process found in industries such as seafood and food processing. Product Grades are defined by weight ranges. Some examples of this would include lobsters, which are categorized and sold by grades, as well as cheese, meat, fish fillets, and prawns. Doran's Grading feature allows the user to sort product based on up to eight different, user defined grades. An example of a grading chart for Lobsters is shown in Figure 1.

APPLICATION DESCRIPTION
Doran's Grading Scale feature is performing flawlessly in real world applications. A great example of this is found in the seafood industry. Current customer's include seafood processors. They have been using a Doran 4300 to grade their fish fillets as they come off the conveyor line. The standard grading feature is enabled as well as eight grade weight tolerances. The customer is no longer matching the weights from the scale to the grading chart on the wall. When an item is placed on the scale, the Doran 4300 flashes the grade number allowing the operator to immediately place the fillets in the correct bin. Doran's Grading Feature has replaced the need for a grading chart, and is lowering the customer's error ratio, lowering costs, and raising productivity.

OPERATING DETAILS
Grading Modes
There are two grading modes to choose from:

A. Grade By Weight: The scale will display the weight of the product added to or removed from the platform for two seconds. The product weight is determined from the difference between the two stable weights. When not displaying the weight of a graded product, the display is blank.

B. Grade By Number. The scale will display the grade number for two seconds (i.e. "111111" to "888888") of the product added to or removed from the platform for two seconds.

When the scale is put into the grading mode, the operator is able to use the UNITS button to toggle between grading and one weighing unit as defined by the startup unit parameter.

Grading Scale Operation Points

In order to configure grades, the 4300 utilizes the front panel. This is done by pressing the UNDER button and the display will show "Spt 1", then the ZERO button which recalls the stored setpoint value. The OVER and UNDER buttons are used to scroll to the desired setpoint weight. To enter the setpoint weight, press the ZERO button to save. To enter the next setpoint weight, press the UNDER then OVER button and the scale will display "Spt 2". The weights for each setpoint are changed and saved using the above steps. The 7400, 7000XL and 8000XL must use the setpoint entry in the setup mode to define grades. An example of how to configure the scale for grading is shown in Table 1.

ADDITIONAL CAPABILITIES
The grades can be combined with our output option board and relay options to operate up to eight lights to make grading even more efficient. The user can simply add or remove the product from the scale and watch for a light that is positioned over a bin to indicate grade sorting locations. This will eliminate the need to even look at the scale display. Doran can also output the grade data via RS-232, RS-485, wired Ethernet or wireless Ethernet for data collection. The weight and grade number can be provided for later accumulation, statistical analysis and customer billing.

AVAILABILITY AND ORDERING INSTRUCTIONS
Doran's Grading Feature is standard in the New Excel Series Board found in the 4300, 7400, 7000XL, and 8000XL. The Excel Series has even more options like Stainless Steel Load Cells, remote switches, Ethernet, 4-20mA, Outputs, Relays, and Audible Alarms.

Call today for more information or to place an order, (919) 776-7737