Tow Ball Weight Using Bathroom Scales
A much cheaper option is the towsafe scale which only measures ball weight manually but should be just as convenient and accurate.
Tow ball weight using bathroom scales. This solves the problem of having a heavy ball weight well up to around 260kg at least and bathroom scales that are limited to around 130kg. For tips on how to. Found the tow ball scales to be reading about 15kg more than the bathroom scales. If your scale reads 100kg your ball reading is really 300kg 100kg x 3.
Tongue weight is the weight that the fully loaded trailer exerts downward on the hitch ball of the tow vehicle. European brand reich offers a digital scale that also measures axle weights hence overall loaded weight but it retails for more than 400. Weigh safe makes ball mounts with built in scales or you could also use a tongue weight scale a commercial scale or even a bathroom scale. Place the jockey wheel on the plank around 2 3 away from the scales.
The tongue weight capacity of the ball mount must also meet or exceed the tongue weight of the trailer. Take the scale reading and multiply it by 3 to receive your caravan towball weight e g. The negatives are that unless you know that your ball weight is likely to be low the bathroom scales won t read the ball weight other than to tell you it weighs off the scales over about 130kg roughly the limit of most bathroom scales. I have read all about the way in which you can use bathroom scales and cut up some timber and make a pivot point to halve the weight taken by the scales.
To use a regular bathroom scale for determining your caravan s ball weight you will need the following accessories. The scale read about 98 lbs which means the tongue weight was about 392 lbs 98x4. If you don t know the tongue weight of your trailer there are several different ways you can measure it. The gross trailer weight for this measurement was about 3400 lbs 2000 450 650 300 so the tongue weight was about 11 5 which is right in the 10 15 range that many people recommend.
Typically your tongue weight should be 10 15 of your total trailer weight. If your car s weight is 2 500 kg when it s hitched up and the weight is 2 300 kg unhitched then your ball weight is 200 kg. But there is another solution. Reset your scales to zero.