Hi All!
This sub has been great and I finally got into mixing. Went all in and bought a ton of flavors, all my supplies and picked up a .01 scale.
My trouble is coming when using the scale for small amounts. I bought the Enigma 500g / .01 scale from Nic River.
I find the scale works great, except for small amounts. When mixing up a 30ml, some ingredients call for .2 or .15, etc. I find that when adding drops to my mix, it won’t pick up the change in weight and just won’t register. If I add a few drops quickly with a good squeeze it picks it right up, but can lead to mistakes.
I’d prefer to add drops slowly, maybe a second apart to be accurate but the scale just doesn’t seem to want to pick it up. Then suddenly it may just jump from 0-.4 or .5.
Is my scale bad? Did I buy a crappy scale? Or maybe that’s just the way it is and there is a better way to utilize the scale?
Appreciate the help!
anecdotally, I have found that barely touching the scale's platform will get it to register small changes. Also make sure no ceiling fans are on they will make it fluctuate.
The scale that River Supply sells is not recommended. No, you should not have bought that one.
You want the AWS LB-501 from Amazon.
And buy calibration weights, or know defined weights of coins for your country. Nickel = 5 grams etc.
Hmm. So I can calibrate with a nickel? Will that do me any good for small increments below 1 gram by doing so?
Depends on scale. Not every nickel weighs 5grams due to age and wear. A new mint nickel weighs 5 grams for calibration.
There are various weight sets you can buy that will be better for calibration.
1gr is approximately 20 drops is what I believe (iirc) so 10 drops would be 1/2gr. Whereas 10 nickels is 50gr. Etc
Some scales aren't completely accurate. Others just need some time to settle. The one I have I know fluctuates slightly the first 1-2 seconds and then settles on the number so I always prep juice with earphones on and as away as I can from my scale so that even my breathing won't disturb it (it's a sensitive one).
Try recalibrating it and mixing again, might fix up its issue. If not, try when adding drops and nothing changes to huff some air onto it a bit more intensly to make it jump around and then return. You could just also bounce your finger off of it and wait for it to figure out what's going on. Digital tech can be quite confused at times! Good luck!
This is an issue with many of the scales we use. This "jeweller" style scale uses a strain gauge to differentiate and measure weight, but not all strain gauges are equal. A 100 gram strain gauge has the same travel as a 500 gram strain gauge, but 500g on a 100g scale will overload it.
This is a long winded explanation to say the scale you have is good for mixing 60 to 250ml bottles but not very accurate for 10ml (you need a 100g scale for those small quantities).
My scale registers every drop. I can blow on my scale and it will register it then go back to the weight it had measured. Like what u/4lan9 said, tap the platform or the bottle to kind of get it moving. Take note of the weight before you tap it. Put a drop in and if it doesn't register give it a little tap. Hopefully when it settles it will be one drop heavier than the weight you noted earlier.
Mind telling us what scale youre using?
Some scales won't register anything before 0.3g
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You can just add the 0.15g of whatever flavor, on top of another thing you're adding.
- Say you're adding 1.5g of Flavor A, then add Flavor B till it reads 1.65g
This is actually an excellent idea if the other suggestions don’t work. I’ll try tapping the scale or adding something heavy first. If not I can use this method until I spring for another scale. Really appreciate the help
I also have this problem, I put something small on the scale after I tare it, before I add liquid. For example I tare the scale, put a caliburn topcap (which weighs exactly 2 grams) then add the liquid. So it will measure 2.15 instead of 0.15. It seems that once some weight is on it, it then measures in .01 increments fine.
I use cheap scale I got from China for 10 bucks... It's not great but it does the job. Just pick up your bottle, swirl it a bit, then put it back down.
I only use the 'tare' function to zero the scale. When I mix, I have a spreadsheet that I fill in as I go along, and use the total weight at each step. That way if it auto-shuts off, I can just pick up where I left off.
I also use a coin as a reference. I have a quarter that weighs 5.67g. I'll usually tare until I get that to measure right, then measure my ingredient until I get close, then weigh the quarter again to see if there's any drift. It there is, I just compensate for it, rather than constantly trying to tare out until it's perfect. If it drifts much past +/- .02, then I'll tare it again.
If it seems to be bouncing all over no matter what, press the scale up and down a few times, and tare it again to your reference.
If it doesn't register a .02 change then that is pretty normal for a cheap non scientific scale. But for my cheapo home scale 3 or 4 drops will register about .06 to .08. For a scale to accurately measure a .01 then you will need to drop a few hundred dollars at least (some scientific lab scales cost thousands). The scale you describe is probably better suited to mixing 60-120ml at a time, for smaller test batches just try to get the amounts in the ballpark, and then do it more accurately in a bigger mix.
If I may offer my two cents: I only mix small quantities (under 150 mL) at a time and I only add the flavors by volume rather than mass. You can pick up a big pack of 1 mL syringes and blunt tip needles (16G, I think or 14G). I find this much more precise when making small, 20 mL tester batches when I have to add 0.1 or 0.05 mL of flavor. I just use the same syringe for the whole batch, wiping off the needle in between flavors and trying to add similar flavors next to each other in case there is a little contamination. Then you can either throw it out or wash it out with hot water and reuse a few more times. When I am adding the nicotine, I also use a syringe, but I use a fresh one so I don’t contaminate the nicotine bottle. I then use the scale for the VG and PG.
Sorry, but that is the worst suggestion I have heard. It is far from being accurate, especially when mixing small batches at 5ml or 10ml. Besides that, by using the same syringe and simply wiping it off, you are cross contaminating your flavors. Not a good idea. And if you knock over a flavor bottle with the dropper off of it, there goes your whole bottle of flavor. It‘s not hard to work with a scale and the above mentioned advice is perfect.
Well, to each their own, I guess. I’m really confused on how you think a syringe with 0.02 mL gradations is less accurate than an at-home scale, but, whatever. Also, when you pull up on a syringe, the liquid only travels up so there is nothing getting into the vial of flavor.