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I appreciate all the input and comments. My thoughts were to use a load cell rated for 50,000 lbs as I have some other applications it would be handy for and need that much capacity. I am reasonably confident that a 50k cell should handle the shock loading but still have concerns as mentioned by Jim earlier that significant signal conditioning will be necessary to prevent the readout from bouncing around. I have no doubts that I can make it work, just whether it'll be worth the money. I like the sugestions to calculate horsepower, but in order to be accurate I'll have to measure the exact hitch height on each machine in order to factor out the weight transfer to the tractor. Plus, the added expense of tying a speedometer and the load cell into a computer to calculate hp would make it our of our budget. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but what I'm taking away from the comments is:
It would be neat & entertaining to calculate all of the info (hp, lbs pulled, lbs transferred), but aside from making this a percentage pull calculation tool there is no educational value, besides the cool factor. Just a little background on what I'm doing here. I'm an cooperative extension engineer working with the state young farmers group, who want to use the pull as a fund raiser. However, in the past the insurance and arena rents made the event un-profitable. If I can create an educational component to the pull, I can justify using the University Insurance to cover the event. A win-win for everyone. I just haven't been able to think of a good educational component for the audience. Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks for all of your advice. -Harvesterguy
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