Thread: Accurate & Cheap Scales

You may need to be more specific about what you want to measure. I presume coffee, but are you talking gm for dosage per serving or gm/kilo for bags & bulk coffee. There are quite a range of cheap electronic scales for measuring gm for dosage checking if you search Evil Bay for instance.

Grahamk

For the dosing scales, I use a very cheap one from Deal Extreme (d x . c o m).
Less than $10 including free postage.

Greg

I bought a set of soehnle ultra 2.0 scales online for about $60. Weighs in 0.1g increments so good for checking dose weights. Goes up to 500g so good for weighing out green beans too

Lots of $10 options that weigh to 0.1 gram accuracy on e*ay, been using one for years.

Ditto on the eBay; can't comment on the accuracy but they seem to be consistent, which is the real issue.

Think I've already posted this pic in another thread. $7.38 or something similar delivered. Of course the wait was probably about 5-6 weeks before it got here. Bought two, and they both work... Bonus! Came with two AAA batteries which are still going strong 9 months later.

I wouldn't use it for your diamonds, as lately it will change the reading up/down 0.1g after a few seconds.

Max it will measure is 500g, heaps for measuring out the shots of the most hardcore caffeine addict. I put a piccolo latte glass on it, zero them, then put the beans in the glass for measure.

A word of advice. Buy a scale that uses AA/AAA batteries rather than the button ones as is fairly common. They last longer and are far cheaper to replace.


Java "Boo for buttons!" phile

Agree on the above. But if you do have any devices that use coin cells, you can often pick up 20 or so off the evil bay (delivered) for the price of one at DSE.

How do they do it and still (presumably) make money???

Cheers

Originally Posted by artman

Agree on the above. But if you do have any devices that use coin cells, you can often pick up 20 or so off the evil bay (delivered) for the price of one at DSE.

How do they do it and still (presumably) make money???

Cheers

Typically because the batteries are lower quality to begin with and/or they're nearing or have reached the end of their 10 year shelf life at which point selling them for anything is better than getting nothing.

I have been buying the buttons in bulk over the years off of the bay and consistently they only last maybe a third of the time new brand name ones do. Some have lasted less than a quarter as long. The conclusion I've come to is it's cheaper to go the bay bulk route only if you have a lot of devices using that size or if you chew through them quickly. The cut-off point I look at is one year. If I can't use all of the bulk order up in a year or shortly thereafter I'm better off buying a new brand named one on sale locally. The other conclusion is I never buy any device that uses the buttons unless there is absolutely no other alternative and I have to have it.

I have a similar philosophy on the AA/AAA batts except there the rechargeables enter the fray. In the end there's little enough price difference to pay for the rechargeable that it's well worth it to use them just to cut back on the number of batteries being tossed.


Java "Recharge!" phile

Packs of new ones can be bought for low cost at most pharmacies here in Oz; even the 2032 size cells are pretty cheap brand new here, so don't see it as an issue. I used to buy stacks of them for a hearing aid until the the tinnitus got so bad that the hearing aid became useless...

Mal.

I love the Hario scale, very nice, combine timer and scale.