A belweigher or belt weigher is a piece of industrial control equipment used to gauge the mass or flow rate of material travelling over a conveyor belt. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Control theory. ... This article is about industrial conveyor belts. ...

A beltweigher replaces a short section of the support mechanism of the belt, which might be one or more sets of idler rollers, or a short section of channel or plate. This weighed support is mounted on load cells. The mass measured by the load cells is integrated to compute the mass of material moving on the belt, after allowing for the mass of the belt itself. Beltweighers generally include the necessary electronics to perform this calculation, often in the form of a small industrialised microprocessor system. The Idler is a bi-yearly British magazine devoted to promoting its ethos of idle living and all that entails. ... A single-point load cell A load cell is typically an electronic device (transducer) that is used to convert a force into an electrical signal. ... In calculus, the integral of a function is an extension of the concept of a sum. ... A microprocessor (sometimes abbreviated µP) is a programmable digital electronic component that incorporates the functions of a central processing unit (CPU) on a single semiconducting integrated circuit (IC). ...

A beltweigher is normally mounted in a straight section of belt, with no vertical or sideways curvature, and as close to level as is practicable. The weighed support must be aligned vertically and horizontally with the adjacent supports to avoid tensile forces in the belt skewing the measurement.

Outputs from beltweighers are typically:

• pulses at predefined increments of mass
• an analogue signal proportional to the flow rate

In addition, some beltweigher controllers will offer features such as driving an output to stop the belt when a predefined mass of material has been measured. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Analog electronics. ...

Uses include mineral and aggregate extraction, continuous mixing processes, and control of variable rate feeders.