ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area portable wire meter?

I priced out a wire meter at my supplier and it was $500. Instead, my apprentice suggested weighing the wire. I bought a $35 digital bathroom scale, and set up a spreadsheet with conversion factors to meters for each wire size and length of spool. Full spools (or boxes of RG6, Cat 5, & speaker wire) are a pre-determined weight, and then we write on the side of the spool the weight that's left. The difference is converted and then charged to the customer. The weight that's left will also give us a length so we can be sure there's enough left on the spool for a particular run.

Once we got the system set up and got used to working with it, we found it saved us lots of time and is very accurate...way more accurate than pacing the runs off. The best part is it's CHEAP (like me )! If you're interested in this send me an email and I'll forward the conversion factors I've worked out for the common spools we use.