At our Newport News office, we’ve stumbled across quite a few misconceptions about instrument calibration. You may believe, for instance, that you only have to worry about calibrating your weighing equipment once per year. This may have some truth to it, but it isn’t always so simple. The right frequency to calibrate for one instrument may not be the same for another. Today, we’d like to share the truth about instrument calibration.
You may have heard that you should calibrate your weighing equipment once per year. But there’s a better rule of thumb for instrument calibration.
What Impacts Calibration Frequency?
A wide variety of factors impact how often you should calibrate your weighing equipment. The quality standards and SOPs your company has in place will help to determine required frequency of calibration. If this doesn’t apply to your company, generally speaking, the more carefully your equipment is handled, the less often it might need calibrating. But what defines poor handling?
When it comes to high-resolution balances, even very slightly moving the instrument could void the calibration, Large capacity floor scales it might require hitting it with fork lifts or dynamometers when lifting something heavier than units capacity. On all types of weighing equipment, ‘shock loading,’ which refers to when you suddenly and drastically increase the load on your equipment, can damage your accuracy and readings. Even factors that are practically out of your control, such as voltage surges, impact how often you should calibrate your instruments.
A Better Rule of Thumb
A typical rule of thumb you might hear about instrument calibration is that you should do it once per year. In actuality, this is the bare minimum. You may need to calibrate more often given the factors we discussed above.
We’d like to propose a better rule of thumb for instrument calibration. The hours of use your instrument receives per day is a far better indicator of how frequently it should be calibrated. Here are our recommendations:
- 1 hour of use per day: 1 annual calibration
- 1-2 hours of use per day: 2 annual calibrations
- 3-4 hours of use per day: 4 annual calibrations
- 5 or more hours of use per day: calibrate monthly
Tracking hourly usage per day of your weighing equipment will give you a far better idea of how often you should calibrate your instruments. Our experts stand ready to help you with your calibration needs in Newport News.
Why Calibrate?
By now, you should be well-acquainted with the importance of instrument calibration. But we’d like to re-emphasize some of the key advantages of regularly calibrating your equipment. Perhaps the most important is that your equipment will adhere to the regulations in your industry. But regulations aside, calibration is of the utmost importance.
Regular calibration won’t just ensure that your readings are as accurate as possible; it will also give your equipment a longer lifespan. Your business has invested in its equipment. And like with any other investment, you ought to protect it.
CONTACT THE SCALE PEOPLE FOR instrument calibration in Newport News!
Since 1956, The Scale People have earned a reputation as the finest service provider for calibration and repairs of weighing equipment in the mid-Atlantic area. Our sales team can help work with you to find the best weighing equipment for your application. We currently have offices in Columbia, MD, and Newport News, VA, but we offer our services nationwide. Over the years, we have built up a long list of satisfied clients from a wide variety of industries, including pharmaceutical, food and beverage, and government manufacturing. We are a fully ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited service company. All of our services have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. We’re only a phone call away at +1 (800) 451-9593. To learn more about what we do, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.