OK so the batteries on the scales have been no end of a pain for the operation. Taking the hives off the scales to return the full set of the scales to home, to open the box with it’s tiny screws and plug it into a USB for charging is no end of FAF, especially when the batteries last about 6 months.
My solution is to hard wire the scales in this gives me 6 non-movable stations on which to put the hives which is a bit of a pain but nothing compared to the above.
Job 1 is to set up my battery station. For this I used an old hive on a hive stand with a lid. I screwed a base board onto the hive as it’s base had rotten. You can see this with the light blue hive in the middle of the picture.
This hive holds a battery pack containing some replaceable batteries. These can last as long as they last but are easily changed without having to take any hives off their stand.
It also acts as a convenient shelf for stuff.
Job 2 was to wire in the first hive. I had an empty station so this was the place to start. BE REALLY CAREFUL with the polarity. I bought nice thin wire in two strand and some connectors from amazon. The idea is to feed the wire through the feed through on the scales into the box and connect it via block connector to the battery plug. This now effectively connects the battery to the scales at a distance. Making sure that the positive terminal always connects to the positive wire you can then wire in the battery into your box. Hey presto the scales are then all hard wired. Finding a big enough battery set up so that you don’t have to change the battery too often is then the challenge. I currently have to change the batteries every month or so but this is a really easy job so not too bad.
This while effective was a bit of a mess. There were wire connectors everywhere and the tiny thin wires were really fiddly and easy to loose the connection.
Whilst changing the battery, I nudged a connection and lost the hive scales for a day.
I therefore found a couple of earthing bars from screwfix and set about using them as bus bars. Black for negative and silver for the positive. Everything can now just wire into these and hopefully the connections will be a bit better.
Pictures to follow when I do the last 2 stands.
Now I just need to find a solution for the hive heart battery issues they seem to be going all the time too!!!