Affordable Scale for Measuring Grams and Ounces???

Not sure where to post this...


Can anyone suggest a decent digital scale for measuring rockets and components down to at least the 1/10 gram/ounces and up to several pounds? LPR, MPR and small HPR.

Are food scales from kitchen supply stores any good?

Should I make sure it has a glass or metal base? Plastic sounds unwise, since it'll be around solvents and adhesives.

Thanks

And of course ebay, I got a very accurate triple beam balance real cheap a few years back. Maybe old fashioned and not digital though.......but its an accurate workhorse in the shop for mixing fuel or measuring parts, etc.

jpummil said:

Digital Scale Discussion

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Thanks. If I had thought a little more, I would have put "digital" in my search criteria. "Scale" comes up with way too much stuff on this site.

Chefmate 3-in-1 Digital Scale. Less than $20.00. Bought at Target.

The cheap digital scale at Harbor Freight was one that I bought.

It has a capacity of 11 lbs, does grams, oz, and lbs. Also tare. It turned out to be even more accurate than the WW scale my wife bought for a lot more money. I know this because I have a 100 gm calibration weight.

I want to say the HF scale was about $10-15 but that might have been after a 20% coupon. The coupons can be found just about in any magazine or Sunday newspaper.

Heres the one I use.....https://www.harborfreight.com/digital-scale-95364.html

11 lb max, measures grams, ounces and pounds....I like it!

Yep. That's the one.

Here's the one I got from Harbor Freight but it's limited to 1000 grams. Works excellent. I may need to upgrade to the 5000 gram job but for now this one suffices well.
https://www.harborfreight.com/1000-gram-digital-scale-97920.html

I picked one up at wallyworld for about 15 bucks -works great -- 1 gram to 5000 or 10 lbs - measures oz -lb-gm ,uses 1 cr-2032 battery

[POW]Eagle159;285722 said:

Heres the one I use.....https://www.harborfreight.com/digital-scale-95364.html

11 lb max, measures grams, ounces and pounds....I like it!

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I have that one as well. Accurate enough for me.

I got a kitchen scale at Walmart and it does g, kg, lbs, and oz. Cost me $20. Doesn't new to be expensive. If you get it, don't forget that a scale is a wonderful aid in baking bread!!

ufj said:

I got a kitchen scale at Walmart and it does g, kg, lbs, and oz. Cost me $20. Doesn't new to be expensive. If you get it, don't forget that a scale is a wonderful aid in baking bread!!

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mine does kg too probably have the same one -i like it , simple and cheap

I picked up a model 99% identical to this one (no company logo) for $19 CDN. It's fairly accurate, will do grams, ounces, pounds, fluid ounces, millilitres.

Search for prime scales on ebay because they have a range of kitchen scales and other scales that you need for weight measurement.And they have scales that have long life battery with quality parts. And we are using one of their kitchen scale which give satisfied performance.

Drat. I was at Harbor Freight last Thursday.

I bought one from Office Depot last year when my son and I were building his Pinewood Derby car. I had hoped that since it claimed to read to a hundredth of an ounce it would be a good one.

The digital readout for the hundredth place was only either a 0 or a 5, so 1.00, 1.05, 1.10, 1.15, etc. Not exactly "accurate to a hundredth of an ounce".

So be careful that you pay attention to what you're buying if you really need accuracy.

I recently got this one since it was inexpensive and measures to 0.1 gram (I expect to be measuring black powder and epoxy soon). The only problem is that my amazon suggestions is now full of weed paraphernalia:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000P1NYE8/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

If these guys don't have it nobody does.

https://www.oldwillknottscales.com/

I also prefer ebay and amazon because there are many digital scale with accuracy and really affordable price that you need for your scale. I bought two scale few months ago at ebay and it performing well and providing accurate results.

Target. Digital stainless steel kitchen scale. Does ounces, fluid ounces, and grams. $20.

Links and products have changed.

https://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=scale

PLUS you can use a coupon to get 20 or 25% more off AND use another coupon to get a free multi-meter or LED flashlight or tape measure or tarp or cheap screwdriver set......

Gary Byrum said:

Here's the one I got from Harbor Freight but it's limited to 1000 grams. Works excellent. I may need to upgrade to the 5000 gram job but for now this one suffices well.
https://www.harborfreight.com/1000-gram-digital-scale-97920.html

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Lots of great suggestions here for budget scales. I have a couple of HF electronic scales myself. Saving a few bucks is fine, especially these days. But I would like to point out one small bit of additional equipment that is rather key to continued operation of scales (especially electronic ones), and that is a calibrated reference test mass....or two.

Your test mass does NOT have to be a fancy, lab-grade, store-bought, expensive piece of lab gear that you source from a thick catalog. It can be as simple as a nut and bolt through a stack of washers. What makes it special is that you find someone with a "good" scale that reliably and accurately registers the weight, and make note of the indicated weight of your test mass. Then, the challenge is to handle and store the test mass carefully (as in, sealed in a clean container) to avoid adding finger oils, dust, corrosion, or other workbench debris that would change the actual weight.

You need to periodically check your new electronic scales with your test mass to make sure your electronics have not gone south. If you use your electronic scales a lot, I suggest a quick test at least once a year.

I usually borrow the kitchen scale, I think most only have a resolution of 1/8th oz or 1 gram though, but most go up to 11 lbs. Bed Bath and Beyond with one of their mail coupons makes the purchasing easy

An accurate set of calibration weights costs as little as $4. Post 1982 pennies weigh 2.500 grams and post WW2 nickels weigh 5.000 grams. That's 400 pennies and 200 nickels per kilogram.

Bob

bobkrech said:

An accurate set of calibration weights costs as little as $4. Post 1982 pennies weigh 2.500 grams and post WW2 nickels weigh 5.000 grams. That's 400 pennies and 200 nickels per kilogram.

Bob

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This is awesome to know. Thanks for sharing this!

Has anyone checked to see if the weight of them changes significantly through circulation... scratches, oxidation, that sort of thing? Probably the meaning of the term "significant" would need to be defined to get a good answer. For me, I probably would test my scale at 2.5 g, 20 g, and 150 g. If it was fine to a tenth of a gram at these weights with 1, 8, and 60 pennies, it would pass.

I bought my digital food scale from Walmart for $15, works fine for 99% of rocketry tasks and it measures a perfect hamburger patty every time.

For finer scale measurements I picked up a jewelry scale on eBay for like 7 bucks. It measures down to the 100th of a gram. You can also find these at your local head shop or downtown convenience store that sells drug paraphernalia.

My apologies to the OP. This would be one of the least affordable scales. Its a balance scale that I was working with a few years ago. I had never taken the top off of one before. I thought it was really fascinating, and maybe some folks on the forum might enjoy seeing the mechanical complexity. This has all been replaced by digital stuff.