Indicator Accessories

Nearly every module on this page carries the same sentence on its product page: "This item is not available for purchase separately and must be purchased with one of the following compatible indicators or kits." Read plainly, that means these are factory-fitted options specified when the instrument is built, not spares you add later.

These are ordered with the instrument. A module is a card that seats inside the indicator's enclosure against a specific connector, so fitting one to an instrument already in service means opening a sealed housing, and on a legal-for-trade scale it means breaking the inspector's seal. That is a service operation rather than a parcel.

So the way to order one is to add it to the same cart as the indicator: it is fitted and tested before the indicator ships. If you are adding capability to an instrument you already own, talk to us first, so the module arrives with the right firmware and the instrument comes back sealed.

Five items on this page are not modules and are sold on their own: the Internal Power Supply, the NP3-6 rechargeable battery, the 6 VDC universal AC adapter, the 6 ft USB 2.0 cable and the 18″ post with swivel.

This is the single most expensive mistake available on this page, and it looks nothing like a mistake at the moment you make it.

Bluetooth COM 2.0 at 100 m exists twice. One part, at $230, fits the TI-500 RF SS, T831 and TI-1680. The other, at $225, fits the TI-500 RF, TI-500 FDI and TI-700K. Identical protocol, identical range, near-identical description, five dollars apart, and not interchangeable.

The same split repeats at 1000 m, at $330 and $315. And RS-485 splits the same way, though there the names differ slightly: half duplex for the TI-500E Plus, TI-500E SS and TI-1520, isolated for the TI-700K and TI-1680.

The reason is electrical rather than commercial. The indicators are different designs with different internal buses, and one of the RS-232 modules states the constraint outright: it needs a 3.3 V port. A module built for a 3.3 V bus is not a module built for a 5 V one, whatever the protocol on the outside says.

So the rule is short: find your indicator in the fitment table first, then read across to the protocol. Searching by protocol and taking the first result that matches is how the wrong part gets ordered.

Both analog modules give you a signal a PLC can read, and they cost within five dollars of each other, so the choice is purely about how the current loop is powered.

Analog Output, active at $140 supplies the loop current itself. The indicator drives the signal and the receiving input simply measures it. Use it when the PLC card is a passive input, and when nothing else is already energising the loop.

Analog Output, loop powered at $135 does the opposite: the receiving device supplies the loop voltage and the module modulates the current drawn from it. A great many installed 4-20 mA systems are built this way, because it halves the wiring and puts the power supply at the panel end.

They also fit different instruments, which narrows the choice further. Active covers the TI-500 RF and RF SS, TI-500E Plus and E SS, TI-700K and TI-1520; loop powered covers the TI-500E Plus, TI-500E SS, TI-1520 and TI-1680. If your indicator appears on only one of those lists, the decision has already been made for you.

The failure mode when this is wrong is quiet rather than dramatic: two active devices fight and the reading is nonsense, while two passive devices leave a dead loop sitting at zero. Neither looks like a wiring fault, which is why it is worth settling on paper.

It is worth saying plainly, because it saves people money: RS-232C is standard on every Transcell indicator. If the plan is a weight ticket on a thermal printer, the port is already there and the only thing missing is a lead.

What the RS-232 modules on this page actually add is a second serial port, or an isolated one. The second port matters when a printer and a data logger both need a permanent connection. Isolation matters when the two ends of the run sit at different ground potentials, which is normal between buildings and around large motor drives, and which otherwise shows up as corrupted characters or a port that fails intermittently.

So the order of questions is: do you need a port at all, or a lead? If a lead, it is on the Cables page. If a second port, or an isolated one, it is here.

The Time / Date / Print Formats option is the other thing people are often really after. It is firmware rather than hardware, and it is what puts a timestamp and a chosen layout on the ticket, which is usually the actual requirement behind "we need it to print properly".

The page reads as a list of interfaces, but a good third of it is not about data.

6V Relay Outputs at $235 are contacts that close at a target weight. That is what makes simple batching possible with no PLC in the loop at all: the indicator itself stops the feeder. It fits the TI-500 RF and TI-500 RF SS.

Time / Date / Print Formats is a firmware option for the TI-500E Plus and TI-500E SS, covered above.

Internal Power Supply at $44 moves the mains supply inside the TI-500E SS enclosure. On a washdown scale that is a real benefit rather than a tidiness one: an external adapter is the part of a stainless installation that is not actually sealed. The Spare Internal Power Supply at $92 is the replacement for an instrument already built that way.

And the 18 inch post with swivel is pure mechanics: it lifts the indicator off the deck of a Guardian floor scale and lets it rotate to face whoever is loading.