Libra Measuring Instruments, Pretoria

The first product of LMI was an electronic scale for livestock, which during these years has virtually taken the complete livestock scale market in South Africa. Other products soon followed, such as scales for feeder wagons, hanging scales, platform scales, all completely designed and manufactured in LMI. Most of these products were designed for the agricultural market.

For the industrial market, a very sophisticated product from LMI is the non-contact torque measuring system. LMI is the only company manufacturing such devices in Africa, and one of the few in the world. Some of these systems were designed for Denel, and mounted on the Rooivalk helicopter where they are still successfully performing after several years. Other torque meters have been made for the CSIR, SABS, ISCOR, SASOL, etc. LMI has also exported its torque meters to the UK.

LMI also manufactures complete weighbridges, from the steel structure to the loadcells, to the readout instrumentation and the relevant software. It was decided to develop digital loadcells because of their better accuracy and reliability with respect to the traditional analogue loadcells.

After a long period of development and testing, the loadcells and instrumentation were considered ready to be launched into the market. The system was given to the SABS for testing and approval, which was obtained in April 2002. Since then, more than 800 weighbridges have been successfully manufactured and installed.

Besides its standard products, LMI also offers custom-designed products in the fields of load measurement and control. These have included, among other things:

Strain gauging of helicopter drive shafts;
A device measuring the centre of gravity of helicopter blades;
Hospital bed scales and wheelchair scales;
Ultra high capacity platform scales (400 tons)