Thursday 25 June 2009

Pinewood Derby - weighing scale, gram


First, this little guy requires a 100g or 200g calibration weight - if you want to calibrate it. So don't buy a 50g like I did. ;) Oops. Now you know the competence of this operator/reviewer.



Second, the patriotic side of me chose this over the competition because it's an "American Weigh Scales" product. "Keep jobs in America", thought I. "Don't import another piece of rubbish."



Well, it's not rubbish, but in big bold letters on the case: "MADE IN CHINA". Oops. So much for keeping jobs in America. That said, I have nothing against Chinese products, so groovy. Was just half-trying to do my patriotic duty.



I bought this because I'd like some precision in my scale - 1/100th of a gram scale for under $20!? Great! Well, yeah, but... If you REQUIRE precision, this one may not be the best bet (HUGE surprise, it's under $20.) Oh well. Even weighing the calibration weight leads to incorrect readings every time.



Put the weight on, calibrate, 100g. Take the weight off, 0g. "Perfect!"



Repeat experiment, no calibration. Put weight on, "100.03g". Take weight off, "0.02g". Oh. Hmph.



So, it's not brilliant, nor should it be for the price, but it's not terrible. I suppose it will do. =) But if you want to keep jobs in America, better to spend $70 for one that really works precisely well.



+ Light, seemingly durable, compact, works okay

- Cheap build quality and feel, works okay



Overall, much as expected. Just hoped it'd worked a little better than it does. Definitely not terrible, I'd even venture good - considering the price!



The scale is really really good for the price. Some reviewers have commented about different readings for the same measurement, but keep in mind that the scale does have a margin of error, as all measurement devices do. If you are selling enriched uranium or precious gems I can see how this would be an issue, but then again you probably shouldn't be using a $15 scale anyway.



My only complaint is that its build quality is somewhat flimsy, but then again it is $15.



Great deal for the price.

I needed a small gram scale for a moisture test (weight gain of a test kit over time). After looking at several sources (kitchen supply mainly) I couldnt find anything less than $50. I decided that pinpoint accuracy wasnt needed for this test and bought this scale, just a reasonalbe differential between the beginning and ending weights.. The test kit was preweighed by the lab, and was 32.7 g. (they round down the intial weight to tenths). The weight on this scale: 32.75, identical for these purposes.

It's hard to beat this product for the price. I'd hoped to use it for metallic reloading, but repeatability on mine turned out to be +/- 0.2 grains. Reading the fine print in the documentation that came with the scale, this is in fact the published rating. I wish that bit of info was provided in the product's description. The 0.01 grams listed is about 0.15 grains. That accuracy is better than needed for checking for double loads but not precise enough to allow me to use it as my primary scale. The scale returns its measurement very quickly. If the circuitry didn't lock in a weight as quickly as it does, it might actually be able to measure more precisely.

This is an excellent little scale - I was really surprised how compact it is. I bought it for reloading and for weighing my kids' AWANA Grand Prix/BSA Pinewood Derby cars. After zeroing the scale, the 100g calibration weight weighed in at 100.05 grams. Calibration was very simple and intuitive, and resulted in a perfect, repeatable 100.00 reading. I weighed a piece of deprimed 308 Winchester brass on my sensitive RCBS 505 balance scale (157.2+ grains), then weighed it on the digital scale - they were within .2 grains (0.013 grams) of each other, and the digital scale alternatively measured 157.2 and 157.4. Seeing as the actual weight was really on the strong side of 157.2, I can understand the alternating readings.



The scale will weigh up to 200 grams (7.05 ounces, .44 pounds), which is perfect for a 5 ounce max Pinewood Derby car. It was one of the few reasonably priced scales that would measure to the 1/100th of a gram, and use has shown it to be very accurate. For my highly precise rifle reloading it's not *quite* accurate enough (+/- 0.15 grains) to measure powder (that's what the 0.1 grain RCBS scale is for), but for practice rounds it is plenty accurate. I'll be using it for sorting brass and bullets and checking for double loads.



Overall, this is an excellent little scale for a great price.

This little bugger is quite good.

Sadly, I can't dive too deep into this product due to its overall simplicity... It's a scale... It's made to weights things... It does its job well.





Its the overall size of a hand, give or take. The platform you weight things is 3" horizontal, 2 1/2" vertical.

On the back of the flip cover there is a release lever to remove said flip cover. Nifty, but not the smoothest thing ever(can be a bit of a fiddle to get it to work right).



The device comes in a leather case, which I do like.



The screen is - in fact - a touch screen, and has a nice blue back-light. I was worried about the touch screen at first(bad past experiences) but it works like you would want it to.



It has several modes for various weight types, but can only go up to about ~200g... unless I am doing something wrong.(why read the manual, anyway?)

The accuracy is as close as I could ask, sometimes it's a few 0.01g off on an object, but close enough for what you pay for it.



Long story short: I like it, I would buy another one, but don't expect I'll need to. - Weighing Scale - American Weigh - Digital - Grains - Digital Scale 01 - Gram'


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