Buying heavy weighing equipment across borders is mostly a documentation exercise with a steel object at the end of it. The equipment is rarely the part that goes wrong; the specification, the trade terms and the hand-over are. A distributor in Southeast Asia, a contractor in the Middle East and a port operator in Africa all ask the same first question — what exactly am I buying, and when will it work? This checklist walks through that question in the order we answer it on real enquiries, from the first specification sheet to the day an operator signs off on a calibrated lane.
Write the specification before you ask for a price
The fastest way to get a useless quotation is to ask for one before describing the load. Put the heaviest single axle, gross vehicle weight, vehicle mix and wheelbase spread in writing first. Say whether the weigh point is permanent or temporary, and whether the equipment will weigh static loads or traffic at 1–100 km/h. Add the running surface, drainage, power and data availability, and the destination the equipment has to reach.
These inputs are not bureaucracy. They decide the nominal capacity — 20, 50 or 100 ton — the deck geometry, whether a single platform or a ZDG multi-deck combination is needed, and whether a portable plate or a permanent welded deck is the right starting point. A specification that omits them forces the supplier to guess, and a quote built on guesses is a quote that will be revised.
We deliberately do not publish a price list here. A figure without a specification behind it is noise, and a buyer comparing two such figures is comparing two different assumptions. Ask instead for a factory quote against a written specification, then hold every response to the same list of inputs.
Choose the product line that fits the site
Two product lines solve two different problems, and the site usually picks for you. The 58 mm portable plate is direct-buried without a civil foundation pit, sealed to IP68 and rated for 150% overload. With full-wheel load integration it returns ±0.5% dynamic accuracy across 1–100 km/h — Class 1 for total weight and Class E for single-axle loads, following the classification in the product manual. It suits temporary haul roads, seasonal intake points, quarries and checkpoints where excavation is the slow, expensive part of the job.
The fixed alternative is a U-shaped steel fully-welded closed-cavity deck: Sa2.5 shot blasting, a double-bottom, double-side paint system leaving a dry film of at least 120 µm, and validation in a third-party 2-million-cycle fatigue test. Standard 3500×1000 mm, widened 4200×1000 mm, with ZDG combinations for mixed wheelbases. It needs a foundation and repays it with years of high-cycle service.
Browse the full product lines side by side, or read our load cell selection guide if the sensor specification is the open question. The honest portable-versus-fixed comparison also sits in the FAQ. We will tell you when the pit-free option is the wrong long-term buy, because a temporary plate on a permanent high-cycle lane is a mistake that is easier to avoid than to fix.
Confirm the commercial terms early
Once the hardware is settled, fix the commercial frame before the schedule drifts. We work to EXW, FCA, FOB, CNF, CIF, DAP and DDP, with payment by T/T. Each term moves responsibility for freight, insurance and destination handling to a different point in the chain, so the one you choose belongs in the purchase order, not in a later email. Two parties who assume different terms will discover the gap at the worst possible moment.
Two numbers should be in the plan from the start: typical lead time is around 60 days, and the minimum order is one unit. That combination matters to a distributor who wants to test a single configuration before committing to a fleet, and to an engineer who is sequencing civil works against an arrival window. Confirm what documentation your destination requires for clearance well before the equipment ships; that is a question for your import side, and it is far easier to answer while the order is still on the drawing board.
Jiajia Forge equipment is trusted in 70+ countries, and more than 10,000 units leave our workshop each year. Those are the scale figures we quote from. If a number is not in the specification, we have not claimed it — and we would rather you plan around a stated window than an optimistic one.
Ask who builds, installs and services it
An imported weighing project fails most often at the hand-off between people who never speak to each other: a fabricator, a separate installer, and a service company that has never seen the deck. Ask one question — who is accountable from welding to commissioning? The answer tells you more about the next five years than any single component on the sheet.
Our answer is that the same organisation runs R&D, manufacturing, installation and maintenance under one roof in Yantai, Shandong, China. Welding, blasting, coating and assembly happen in our own workshop, and our own installation and maintenance teams support commissioning and operator hand-over. When a site needs attention later, the people you call are the people who built the equipment. The about page describes that structure.
That also covers the awkward questions: custom deck sizes, installation guidance, unattended operation, and what happens to records during a network outage. Those are answered in the FAQ, and they are worth settling before the order rather than after the crate arrives.
Close the loop on documentation and hand-over
A working lane is not the same as a delivered crate. Before you sign off, agree in writing on the calibration basis against known loads, the daily checks an operator will run, the records the indicator produces, and who signs the hand-over. For an unattended or enforcement installation, add the software behaviours you are relying on — image capture and video linkage, anti-cheating detection, 7×24 operation, local caching when the connection drops, and central management across multiple sites.
Here is the condensed checklist, in the order we use it:
- A written specification. Heaviest axle, gross weight, vehicle mix, static or 1–100 km/h, surface, drainage, power and data.
- A product line chosen for the site. A 58 mm pit-free plate or a welded U-steel deck, with the reason recorded.
- Commercial terms fixed. EXW through DDP, T/T, around 60 days lead time, a one-unit minimum.
- One accountable team. Fabrication to commissioning under one roof, with installation guidance in writing.
- A defined hand-over. Calibration, operator training, record format and the software features you actually need.
- Clearance documentation. Confirmed for the destination before shipping, not after arrival.
Work through those six lines and most of the surprises disappear. The applications pages are a useful sanity check too — mining, ports, logistics and enforcement sites each stress a system differently, and a specification that looks complete on paper can still miss the one condition that dominates a real site.
Have a specification ready? Send it and request a factory quote — we will come back with the configuration, the trade terms and a delivery window you can plan around, and we will say plainly if a different product line fits your site better.