Greetings fellow vapers,
While I am very new to the whole DIY thing, which I am absolutely loving, I have been in the scale industry now for 25 years and counting. In the very short time I have been with you in this forum, I have already learned loads from you and I am still learning. I think it is only fair that I trade some knowledge with you too. Off course, I am not going to tell you which scale company I work for. It may be considdered advertising, and pee of the moderators.
1: After you have turned your scale on, give it 10 to 15 minutes to warm up. I know it sounds ridiculous but it is very important. Most of the cheaper scales have strain gauge loadcells in them. Strain gauges similar to the coils in atomizers have a small current flowing through them which heats them up very slightly and so the resistance increases in them as they warm up. Nothing compared to the current your mod passes through your atomizer, but the principal is the same.
Just for interests sake: If your mod displays an ohm readout have a look at the ohm reading when your atomizer is cold. After you have vaped it for a while and it is nice and hot, look at the ohm reading again. You will notice that it has it has increased slightly.
If you have an auto off function, disable it if you can. You want your scale to warm up and stay warm until you have finished mixing, not before you have even started.
2: Always make sure that your scale is absolutely level when you use it. It should have been absolutely level when it was calibrated. Most good scales have a bubble level on them. If it is slightly off level, everything you put onto the scale is slightly off center of gravity and could cause the scale to be out by a couple of milligrams. That may not sound like a lot, but when you are mixing a big batch, every milligram out of balance adds up.
3: If you are lucky enough to have your own weights, it is very advisable to have them calibrated at least once a year by an accredited scale company. There is no need to have them verified as it is for your personal use only. Keep them as clean as possible and store them in a dry clean area. Always use clean gloves when you handle the weights. Grease from your fingers, no matter how clean your hands are will leave residue on the weights which possibly cause corrosion and that effects the weights.
4: If you are looking to buy weights, spend that little bit of extra money and buy stainless steel weights. They are less susceptible to corrosion. And they will last you a lifetime. Steel weights have a nasty habit of rusting and I don't have to tell you what that leads to.
5: It is always a good idea to check the calibration of your scale before every mix, especially on the cheaper scales (I mean, less than R1000.00).
6: It is always good to keep weights at least a third of your scales capacity or less, but enough to test it up to full capacity. This is called a linearity test. A linearity test is when you take the weights and put them onto the scale one by one. So, assuming you have a 300g scale: when you put 100g on it, you want to see 100.00g and so on up to 300g. It is no good that the scale shows 300.00g but when you put 100g you get 99.95g. That could royally screw up a mix. It could mean that there is a problem with your scale or your weights need to be re calibrated.
7: Another test I like doing is what we call a repeatability test. This is where I take a weight. Any weight, I don't care, and it must show me the correct weight. When I take the weight off again, it must go back to zero. If I put 300g on it and it gives me anything more or less than 300.00g, or anything more or less than 0.00g, I am not a happy chappy. It could mean that something is touching the loadcell. It's what we call binding. Some scales come with a locking screw on it. If it does, always make sure that that cursed screw is well screwed out and clear of the loadcell. It's a common problem with scales that have locking screws.
8: The corner test is where I take a weight and I put it on the 4 corners of the scales pan. It should weigh the same where ever you put it, give or take 1 increment.
9: Never put anything on top of your scale that you don't intend to weigh regardless how light it is. You don't want to exercise the loadcell unnecessary. It will affect the calibration and in the long term could reduce the life of the loadcell. I could write a book on scales that I have seen that have been overloaded.
10: If you can't afford calibration weights or just can't get hold of them, you could use coins to do a calibration as well. I see some other people have also suggested it. Kimbo was also kind enough to give us a table of coin weights in 0.5g increments. As good as his/her intentions were, it is just not good enough for accurate calibration when we are weighing in 10mg increments.
I took some coins to work with me today and I weighed batches of ten of each coin on one of our weight calibration balances, then I calculated the average weight of the coins. They are not new coins. They are just what I happened to have in my change collection, so while I believe the weights below are more accurate than anything else that has been posted here, don't hold them as accurate down to the micro gram.
R5.00 = 9463.9 mg
R2,00 = 5484.6 mg
R1.00 = 3151.0 mg
R0.50 = 4927.7 mg
R0.20 = 3490.0 mg
R0.10 = 1993.7 mg
Let me leave you with this and I hope that it helps you keep your scales more accurate. Please feel free to ask me anything that you like. I will do my best to answer your questions.
Best regards and happy vaping
While I am very new to the whole DIY thing, which I am absolutely loving, I have been in the scale industry now for 25 years and counting. In the very short time I have been with you in this forum, I have already learned loads from you and I am still learning. I think it is only fair that I trade some knowledge with you too. Off course, I am not going to tell you which scale company I work for. It may be considdered advertising, and pee of the moderators.
1: After you have turned your scale on, give it 10 to 15 minutes to warm up. I know it sounds ridiculous but it is very important. Most of the cheaper scales have strain gauge loadcells in them. Strain gauges similar to the coils in atomizers have a small current flowing through them which heats them up very slightly and so the resistance increases in them as they warm up. Nothing compared to the current your mod passes through your atomizer, but the principal is the same.
Just for interests sake: If your mod displays an ohm readout have a look at the ohm reading when your atomizer is cold. After you have vaped it for a while and it is nice and hot, look at the ohm reading again. You will notice that it has it has increased slightly.
If you have an auto off function, disable it if you can. You want your scale to warm up and stay warm until you have finished mixing, not before you have even started.
2: Always make sure that your scale is absolutely level when you use it. It should have been absolutely level when it was calibrated. Most good scales have a bubble level on them. If it is slightly off level, everything you put onto the scale is slightly off center of gravity and could cause the scale to be out by a couple of milligrams. That may not sound like a lot, but when you are mixing a big batch, every milligram out of balance adds up.
3: If you are lucky enough to have your own weights, it is very advisable to have them calibrated at least once a year by an accredited scale company. There is no need to have them verified as it is for your personal use only. Keep them as clean as possible and store them in a dry clean area. Always use clean gloves when you handle the weights. Grease from your fingers, no matter how clean your hands are will leave residue on the weights which possibly cause corrosion and that effects the weights.
4: If you are looking to buy weights, spend that little bit of extra money and buy stainless steel weights. They are less susceptible to corrosion. And they will last you a lifetime. Steel weights have a nasty habit of rusting and I don't have to tell you what that leads to.
5: It is always a good idea to check the calibration of your scale before every mix, especially on the cheaper scales (I mean, less than R1000.00).
6: It is always good to keep weights at least a third of your scales capacity or less, but enough to test it up to full capacity. This is called a linearity test. A linearity test is when you take the weights and put them onto the scale one by one. So, assuming you have a 300g scale: when you put 100g on it, you want to see 100.00g and so on up to 300g. It is no good that the scale shows 300.00g but when you put 100g you get 99.95g. That could royally screw up a mix. It could mean that there is a problem with your scale or your weights need to be re calibrated.
7: Another test I like doing is what we call a repeatability test. This is where I take a weight. Any weight, I don't care, and it must show me the correct weight. When I take the weight off again, it must go back to zero. If I put 300g on it and it gives me anything more or less than 300.00g, or anything more or less than 0.00g, I am not a happy chappy. It could mean that something is touching the loadcell. It's what we call binding. Some scales come with a locking screw on it. If it does, always make sure that that cursed screw is well screwed out and clear of the loadcell. It's a common problem with scales that have locking screws.
8: The corner test is where I take a weight and I put it on the 4 corners of the scales pan. It should weigh the same where ever you put it, give or take 1 increment.
9: Never put anything on top of your scale that you don't intend to weigh regardless how light it is. You don't want to exercise the loadcell unnecessary. It will affect the calibration and in the long term could reduce the life of the loadcell. I could write a book on scales that I have seen that have been overloaded.
10: If you can't afford calibration weights or just can't get hold of them, you could use coins to do a calibration as well. I see some other people have also suggested it. Kimbo was also kind enough to give us a table of coin weights in 0.5g increments. As good as his/her intentions were, it is just not good enough for accurate calibration when we are weighing in 10mg increments.
I took some coins to work with me today and I weighed batches of ten of each coin on one of our weight calibration balances, then I calculated the average weight of the coins. They are not new coins. They are just what I happened to have in my change collection, so while I believe the weights below are more accurate than anything else that has been posted here, don't hold them as accurate down to the micro gram.
R5.00 = 9463.9 mg
R2,00 = 5484.6 mg
R1.00 = 3151.0 mg
R0.50 = 4927.7 mg
R0.20 = 3490.0 mg
R0.10 = 1993.7 mg
Let me leave you with this and I hope that it helps you keep your scales more accurate. Please feel free to ask me anything that you like. I will do my best to answer your questions.
Best regards and happy vaping
