Author Topic: You want a digital scale for What??  (Read 10020 times)

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Online coppice

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #25 on: July 30, 2020, 10:56:41 pm »
Weighing 99.99% pure gold jewelery creates a substantial market for these small scales in East Asia, but there are many other uses. There are some kitchen scales with a small secondary scale like this integrated next to the main pad, to allow precise measurement of things like a few grams of yeast or herbs.
 
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Online wraper

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #26 on: July 30, 2020, 11:00:20 pm »
Counting parts. Instead of counting hundreds of parts as an idiot, weight one (or a few for better precision), then weight all of the parts, calculate total number number.
 
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Offline joeqsmith

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #27 on: July 30, 2020, 11:52:44 pm »
I have a few smaller ones that I use to measure how full my small nitrous bottles are.  I have an old balance in the lab that I use to measure clutch parts. 

You can also use them to measure torque. 

Offline Halcyon

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #28 on: July 31, 2020, 12:35:49 am »
I do not condone drug usage. Never have, and never will, except from my Doctor!  :--

You hit the nail on the head. Street-level dealers often carry these.
 
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Offline Alex Eisenhut

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #29 on: July 31, 2020, 01:19:41 am »
Counting parts. Instead of counting hundreds of parts as an idiot, weight one (or a few for better precision), then weight all of the parts, calculate total number number.

That's legit, but the problem for me was that I forgot how to tell my scale to enter counting mode. Something about putting 25 parts down first but if you don't know what to press it's quite cryptic and I lost the little 2cm x 2cm "manual".

lesson: always scan whatever papers you get asap!
Hoarder of 8-bit Commodore relics and 1960s Tektronix 500-series stuff. Unconventional interior decorator.
 
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Offline Brumby

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #30 on: July 31, 2020, 03:03:15 am »
Aside from the body scale in the bathroom, I have a range of digital scales from 5kg/1g down to 20g/1mg.  The only time I've used any for drugs is when I needed to prepare 1/4 of a tablet of some medication for our dog, when the tablet didn't break cleanly in the pill cutter.

Two units have been modified to become computer connected - a 3kg/0.1g scale using an Arduino compatible MEGA board with a barcode reader for recording weights of barcoded products.  The other was a 20g/1mg scale with an Arduino compatible Nano doing timed sampling for an evaporation study.

I do have one very small one which is a bit bigger than the tiny one shown above, but it played up, so it got put aside.  Then one day a year or so later, I came across it and tried it again ... and it worked.  This saved it from the bin - but I don't have any confidence in the stupid thing, so it will probably rot away.
 

Offline dkim5nu

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #31 on: July 31, 2020, 09:25:05 am »
Reloading (manufacturing ammunition for guns) requires precise measurement of explosive powders. For example, 9mm round requires a range of 3 to 5 grains of explosive powder inside its shell casing behind a projectile. There are 7000 grains in one pound and 454 grams in a pound, so that's about 0.195 grams to 0.324 grams per round of 9mm. Anything more than that, the ammunition is going to blow up your hands.
 
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Offline Strand17

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #32 on: July 31, 2020, 09:01:45 pm »
Hello,

People who fly rubber powered model airplanes indoors use this kind of scales. We are no big market, but still...

One example of the model airplanes we fly is the F1D competition class. The minimum weight of the structure (airframe) for a 55 cm wing span aircraft is 1.4 grams and the rubber motor (rubber band loop)  must weigh no more than 0.4 grams. Flight times range from 15 to 40 minutes depending on the height of the ceiling and the flying conditions. Since we travel to competitions, portable scales are really helpful.

In fact 0.01 gram resolution is a bit coarse when keeping track of the weight of structural parts when building to a target weight or when preparing rubber motors. :)

Here is a link to a video a which conveys a bit of the feeling of indoor freeflight.



Best regards,

Jonas
 
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Offline KL27x

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #33 on: July 31, 2020, 11:44:44 pm »
Counting parts. Instead of counting hundreds of parts as an idiot, weight one (or a few for better precision), then weight all of the parts, calculate total number number.
This is my most common use for my scale. But the first pic of the thread? It's a little confusing, but doesn't it look like a mini pocket scale disguised as a key fob?

The obvious purpose is to disguise it from the popo, no?
 
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Offline KL27x

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #34 on: July 31, 2020, 11:59:19 pm »
Or boss, or coworkers, or family.
 
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Online ebastler

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #35 on: August 03, 2020, 05:27:09 am »
Here is a link to a video a which conveys a bit of the feeling of indoor freeflight.

Nice! At the risk of taking this thread off-topic a bit, I'm wondering about two things:

Why would there be a minimum weight for the planes? If you can manage to make it even lighter while keeping enough structural stability, isn't that a worthy achievement?

Why don't all flights end by the plane crashing into a wall after a relatively short time? I assume that you set the tail unit such that the plane goes round in circles. But I would have thought that you can't control the trajectory well enough to keep a plane away from the walls for tens of minutes?
 

Offline GlennSpriggTopic starter

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #36 on: August 04, 2020, 01:20:09 pm »
For what ?

Clearly ... obviously .. for you to spam general chat area.  :-DD

O.P. here. ?? Huh!!??  'Spam'??...  I'm obviously old & senile, but I do not understand your 'comment', mate?  :-//
Why are 'some' people like you so angry??  Don't know you from a bar of soap?... Maybe you, (but
luckily not ANYONE else here?) miss-understood the inflection of tone in my Title, and my tongue-
in-cheek text that followed. Of COURSE I know there are numerous uses for such scales, for which
I'm thankful for the numerous other informative replies.  ;D   (Other than the 'obvious').
My 'For what?', was meant as a rising inflection jokingly meaning 'what else!', and was posted in fun,
although surprised at the miniature car-remote 'look', where it's use was obvious??...  :phew:

OH!! I get it!!  Over 10,000 posts... Demi-God... Ivory Towers... Belittling-101... Are you proud?
Thanks to everyone else !!  :-+
Diagonal of 1x1 square = Root-2. Ok.
Diagonal of 1x1x1 cube = Root-3 !!!  Beautiful !!
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #37 on: August 04, 2020, 01:35:45 pm »
I weigh components I modelled to see whether I'm close enough. If the weight is close the model is more likely to be too. Weighing things like plugs or pins isn't really an option when your scale only does grams.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2020, 01:38:28 pm by Mr. Scram »
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #38 on: August 04, 2020, 01:37:41 pm »
O.P. here. ?? Huh!!??  'Spam'??...  I'm obviously old & senile, but I do not understand your 'comment', mate?  :-//
Why are 'some' people like you so angry??  Don't know you from a bar of soap?... Maybe you, (but
luckily not ANYONE else here?) miss-understood the inflection of tone in my Title, and my tongue-
in-cheek text that followed. Of COURSE I know there are numerous uses for such scales, for which
I'm thankful for the numerous other informative replies.  ;D   (Other than the 'obvious').
My 'For what?', was meant as a rising inflection jokingly meaning 'what else!', and was posted in fun,
although surprised at the miniature car-remote 'look', where it's use was obvious??...  :phew:

OH!! I get it!!  Over 10,000 posts... Demi-God... Ivory Towers... Belittling-101... Are you proud?
Thanks to everyone else !!  :-+
What are you on about?
 
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Offline GlennSpriggTopic starter

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #39 on: August 04, 2020, 02:17:23 pm »
O.P. here. ?? Huh!!??  'Spam'??...  I'm obviously old & senile, but I do not understand your 'comment', mate?  :-//
Why are 'some' people like you so angry??  Don't know you from a bar of soap?... Maybe you, (but
luckily not ANYONE else here?) miss-understood the inflection of tone in my Title, and my tongue-
in-cheek text that followed. Of COURSE I know there are numerous uses for such scales, for which
I'm thankful for the numerous other informative replies.  ;D   (Other than the 'obvious').
My 'For what?', was meant as a rising inflection jokingly meaning 'what else!', and was posted in fun,
although surprised at the miniature car-remote 'look', where it's use was obvious??...  :phew:

OH!! I get it!!  Over 10,000 posts... Demi-God... Ivory Towers... Belittling-101... Are you proud?
Thanks to everyone else !!  :-+
What are you on about?

Not aimed at you mate....  Have a good day!!   :)
Diagonal of 1x1 square = Root-2. Ok.
Diagonal of 1x1x1 cube = Root-3 !!!  Beautiful !!
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #40 on: August 04, 2020, 02:29:07 pm »
Not aimed at you mate....  Have a good day!!   :)
It doesn't make sense either way.
 
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Offline Simon_RL

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #41 on: August 04, 2020, 03:02:51 pm »
I used to use a similar scale when I was into target archery for arrow building. I was important to get each arrow weight as close to each other as possible to ensure consistent fight across a set of six + 2 spare arrows. That scale measured in both grams and grains, can't remember the resolution now.
 
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Offline TimFox

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #42 on: August 04, 2020, 03:17:34 pm »
I read an interesting use for weighing scales in a biography of Henry Ford and his motor company.  At the beginning of WW II, the company management was somewhat chaotic and the Army sent Henry Ford II back to civilian life to fix things, since Ford Motor Co was important to the war effort.  He found that accounting was keeping track of accounts payable by weighing the paper invoices (as some here weigh bags of components to count them).  The author noted that that this was not as dumb as it sounds, since accounting had previously calibrated this process to get an acceptable estimate of the cash flow.
Robert Lacey:  Ford, the men and the machine  Boston: Little, Brown & Co 1986.  pp 429-430.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2020, 03:19:46 pm by TimFox »
 
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Offline El Rubio

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #43 on: August 08, 2020, 06:18:33 pm »
Reloading (manufacturing ammunition for guns) requires precise measurement of explosive powders. For example, 9mm round requires a range of 3 to 5 grains of explosive powder inside its shell casing behind a projectile. There are 7000 grains in one pound and 454 grams in a pound, so that's about 0.195 grams to 0.324 grams per round of 9mm. Anything more than that, the ammunition is going to blow up your hands.


Not necessarily. I have been reloading since about 1985. I currently use a cheap digital scale supposedly accurate to 1grain The problem is if you are trying to measure 4.2 grains for one of those 9mm rounds. 3-5grains is unacceptable. I am not worried about 5 grains damaging the gun as much as the desire for accurate and consistent loads. I use this method to increase the accuracy of my powder charges. For those of you not familiar, measuring gunpowder is done with a simple device that usually has an adjustable cavity that is filled with powder. You measure the powder by volume and adjust until it is what you want- say 4.2 grains. You may use different powders for different loads and they weigh differently. Back to my method. I Adjust the powder measure to throw 4.2 grains according the cheap scale. Then, I throw ten charges and measure them all together. It should weigh 42grains. I fine tune the powder measure until 10 throws are as close to 42grains as possible. Now if my scale is off by a grain, it is only 1/10th of a grain per charge. 4.1-4.3 is fine.
Getting back to overcharging rounds. 9mm is not a great example because the case is so small. You can definitely overcharge a 9mm, but I have not used a powder that would even fit a double charge into a 9mm case. I had concerns using “Unique” powder for 9mm once because the 5-6 grains called for nearly filled the case. I was concerned that seating the bullet would compress the powder which is something you don’t want to do. There’s a lot of space in a 357mag and that could get dangerous. Especially since most 357 owners will also run 38special. The cases are the same except the 357 is a little longer. It is quite possible to load a 38 with a 357 charge if you aren’t paying attention, but I don’t know anyone that doesn’t double or triple check things like that when reloading. I read about the 10x measurement back in 80’s when I used an analog RCBS scale and have used it since.
 
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Offline jimdeane

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #44 on: August 08, 2020, 06:56:07 pm »
I felt a little odd buying a cheap milligram-precision digital scale in my last Amazon order. But my use IS drugs -- measuring the weight of my asthma inhaler after doses to determine if the dosage is consistent throught the range from new to last dose. (I suspect it is not -- I have much worse symptoms in the last week or so of use.) If my data supports my hypothesis I can then submit a stronger argument to the FDA and the manufacturer that there is a problem.
 
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Offline coppercone2

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #45 on: August 13, 2020, 07:28:19 am »
there is another awesome use for digital scales

its called measuring chemicals for reactions
 
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Offline SilverSolder

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #46 on: August 13, 2020, 01:18:35 pm »
there is another awesome use for digital scales

its called measuring chemicals for reactions

That's what we do in the kitchen every day?  :D
 
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Online wraper

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #47 on: August 13, 2020, 02:19:26 pm »
How about simply measuring components of 2 part adhesives.
 
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Online asmi

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #48 on: August 13, 2020, 02:22:00 pm »
I wonder if you can use it to determine if magic smoke escaped the ICs you are about to solder. It's got to weigh something, right? :-DMM

Offline madires

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Re: You want a digital scale for What??
« Reply #49 on: August 13, 2020, 02:32:04 pm »
... or you need one for your top-secret flux recipe which is passed down in your family for generations. :)
 


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