Unboxing and testing a NOS Hobart HLX Networked Computing Scale
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ส.ค. 2024
- Like most people, I have a million projects in some state of disarray at any given time, but today I totally upended my "schedule" to show off this extremely cool and useless device I recently picked up... For free. This scale and two others like it were being discarded, and I asked if I could take them home. Graciously, I was allowed to take just one (even if I wanted all three) given that I removed the serial number from it, which I have done.
Initially, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it at all, but after playing with it for a while I think it would be really cool to use as a DOS gaming rig or something. Tell me what you think in the comments. I can't sell it and I can't part it out, so either it lives with me indefinitely or it has to be "Rendered inoperable," as the warehouse guys put it to me.
In this video, I show unboxing and setting up the HLX for the first time - This is the first time this scale has been powered up since 2009 when it left the factory! Luckily, everything seems to be working and it even seems to still be calibrated properly. Nothing less to be expected from a Hobart, obviously.
In the end, because this is "Just a PC" as @TrackZeroFutzin might put it and I have no PLU server for this scale, I can't really do anything scale specific with it. At least it's a cool novelty machine!
I kind of want one now.
They're pretty reasonably priced on eBay these days. If you just look for "Hobart HLX" you should find a few.
I've worked in a place that uses a scale very similar to this one. They are absolute pieces of junk. Labels often don't eject right, no clear directions on how to properly insert a new roll of labels, gears in label mechanism abruptly grind, label cassette often fails to lock in property and falls out, touch screen is very fragile and scratches/cracks easily, PLU data sometimes doesn't update, plus some PLU codes didn't even work when typed in despite it being the correct number, just a very long list of issues with these... The one I used also didn't have a way to manually change the date and time, which was always displayed wrong. And another day the print head stopped working without any warning, which put the scale out of commission for a few days...
Sounds like your scale was not too similar to this one, since this one does have clear labelling on the cassette for threading of media, has three different and obvious adjustments for the date and time, an adjustment for the label ejection, and the touch screen is made of glass so you would be hard pressed to scratch it.
PLU problems are on the server side (not stored on the scale for most installations) and thermal print heads wear out and fail all the time - They are a normal replacement item for all scales.
@@AiOinc1 Tell that to the repair technician who kept getting called to fix pieces of junk.
@@tinecrinec4769 Considering I am one of those technicians, I feel I am qualified to call you a liar.
@@AiOinc1 Nah, that sounds like an HLX to me. Gets worse with time. Super cool though that you got some new old stock. Ohhhh, it's red on the bottom. That's a training scale.