Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Just wondering if this looks like a decent scale

egloskerry - 3-4-2007 at 13:15

Or just too good to be true.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-500-GRAM-DIGITAL-SCALE-LAB-PHARMACY-...

I'm thinking that 500g/.1g for 14$ seems like a steal. If it's good, though, I'll happily buy it.

chromium - 3-4-2007 at 13:36

Do not know this model but i bought mine from ebay with similar price year or two ago. It works quite well but i can not always be sure what exactly those tenths of grams are. Sometimes they change after some time quite randomly. Actual measurement error may be 0.3g or even 0.5g.

This is still very good result considering price and convenience of use.


[Edited on 3-4-2007 by chromium]

egloskerry - 3-4-2007 at 14:17

I can fudge half a gram. I'm not doing anything ridiculously complicated (yet).

BeanyBoy - 5-4-2007 at 09:39

Quote:
Originally posted by egloskerry
I can fudge half a gram. I'm not doing anything ridiculously complicated (yet).


@egloskerry,

You need to ask the seller for a commission; you're a good enough salesman that I just bought one too!

:D

-legume lad

hinz - 5-4-2007 at 12:43

I don't know how good it is, but a few month ago I bought a mechanic balance for 30€ and after I calibrated it (was quite a lot of work to adjust the etched glass strip for the mg-scale), it workes wonderful (measures on 5mg exactly).
The good thing of mechanic balances is, that you can't really kill them by loading too much weight on it and you can see how it works. Sometimes a weight falls out of it's mount and you can simply put it back in it and it works well again.
But if you once load too much on such a cheap digital balance or don't treat it carefully, you probably overexpand the DMS-strip inside it and it will never work well again. So if I were you I would buy an old mechanical balance for cheap, since everyone wants digital balances, and recalibrate it.
If you want a digital one, keep on looking at ebay for a while and look for a good and cheap one, (mettler etc.) and don't wase your money with those cheap ones.

Weighing the Scales

BeanyBoy - 5-4-2007 at 14:48

Quote:
Originally posted by hinz
I don't know how good it is, but a few month ago I bought a mechanic balance for 30€ and after I calibrated it (was quite a lot of work to adjust the etched glass strip for the mg-scale), it workes wonderful (measures on 5mg exactly).
The good thing of mechanic balances is, that you can't really kill them by loading too much weight on it and you can see how it works. Sometimes a weight falls out of it's mount and you can simply put it back in it and it works well again.
But if you once load too much on such a cheap digital balance or don't treat it carefully, you probably overexpand the DMS-strip inside it and it will never work well again. So if I were you I would buy an old mechanical balance for cheap, since everyone wants digital balances, and recalibrate it.
If you want a digital one, keep on looking at ebay for a while and look for a good and cheap one, (mettler etc.) and don't wase your money with those cheap ones.


In school I used both the classic triple beams and the Dial-O-Gram from Ohaus. I've passed on a few on e-Bay as other items took precedence.

Realing of course that there are scale mfrs other than Ohaus. But of the two, which would go for, the triple beams, or the Dial-o-Gram?

But I grabbed one of the cheapies. How can I go wrong for $14? Its gotta be better than the Skil-Craft "Precision Beam" balance I'm using now...

-Patriarch of the Fabaceae Family

chemrox - 8-4-2007 at 21:25

Remember these are "scales" not balances .. they need to be re-calibrated from time to time but for the price you can hardly go wrong. I paid a little more for one that does a nominal 0.01 grams that is actually 0.05 grams..I check against an Ohaus from time to time and it seems to be correct on every check. I have a set of callibration weights I got on ebay. They're good to have as these things are not linear. They are pressure transducers made in China. Some are better than others but all seem pretty good now and are cheaper every year. The last 0.1 - 50 g scales I bought were $15 US.

egloskerry - 18-4-2007 at 15:43

I just wanted to follow up on this thread. I got my scale and I have to say, for 14$, it's awesome. I used a calibrated weight, weighed it five times, and four out of five it was the right weight. Only once was it off, and only then it was off by .1g. It is a very consistent scale, as well. If anyone is looking for an inexpensive, quality, medium capacity scale, I'd definitely recommend this. I'm happy I didn't have to spend 60$ on it.