Greetings, I am moving up the ladder, and have decided to begin mixing some of my own chemistry. I would greatly appreciate any advice on what scale to purchase, and if a suitable one can be be purchased for under $200 and what is the degree of accuracy required. As always, thanks for all responses.

-- James Chinn (Jim1341@dellepro.com), September 07, 2001

Answers

I bought an Acculab V-200 scale on eBay for $99. It shows 0.01 gram and the accuracy is +/- 0.01 g. It's great when I weigh up 0.5 g of, for example, Potassium bromide. But one can also make a 10% solution of bromide and use 5 ml to get the 0.5 g.

So, a scale with an accuracy at 0.1 g is okay.

Check eBay for the Acculab V-200, this model is recently discontinued so you can get a new one cheap! The extra accuracy is great!

-- Patric (jenspatric@mail.bip.net), September 07, 2001.

On the German market a Chinese apothecary scale is available for around $25.- which is very accurate and very inexpensive. A little shopping around ought to find this too in the US. I have been using this scale for several years and it works fine. It definitly is no problem measuring 0.1g, an absolute necessity if you want to use Phenidon.

-- Volker Schier (Volker.Schier@fen-net.de), September 07, 2001.

A chinese scale? Oh, well, it's maybe good, but I still recommend the Acculab V200. Look up Acculab V200 on eBay and you will see that a person is selling lots of them via dutch auctions. It costs more ($109), but it's much more fun to work with a scale with better accuracy. Acculab is one of the best brands in laboratory equipment.

-- Patric (jenspatric@mail.bip.net), September 07, 2001.

The Photographer's Formulary sells the Acculab V-400 for $150. This model has accuracy to 0.01 and weighs up to 400g. They also sell the Acculab V-200, but I forget the price. They are also a wonderful source for photo chemicals. I've been very impressed with their service and support, so I recommend supporting an outfit that supports the photography community.

One more thought, in one of Steve Anchell's books--I think it's The Darkroom Cookbook--he mentions a very inexpensive scale that is used by bullet reloaders to measure grains of powder. This would be a very much cheaper way to measure tiny amounts of phenidone. Then you can use a postal scale, which is also cheap, for weighing larger amounts.

-- Ted Kaufman (writercrmp@aol.com), September 07, 2001.

I have just switched from a triple balance scale to digital. Check out Precision Weighing Balances. I just got a A&D HL-400 scale, including ac adapter, 6 weigh boats and 2 calibration weights with shipping and handling grand total was 129.49. Works great. www.scalenet.com. IF that doesn't work and i will look up another site for you.

-- Ann Clancy (clancya@mediaone.net), September 07, 2001.

I agree with Ted Kaufman about Photographers Formulary. They are great! It's very easy to order from them and they accept credit cards. But the graduation of the Acculab V-400 is 0.1 g and not 0.01 g. They don't sell the V-200 scale, but the GS-200 for $99, and that's for 0.1 g too.

-- Patric (jenspatric@mail.bip.net), September 07, 2001.

There are usable options below $100. For example, check this out:

http://www.balances.com/myweigh/proscale250.html

You can use disposable cups (for parties etc) and tare weight function when measuring bulky chemicals (like 100g sodium sulfite).

Of course, if your formulae call for phenidone you may need higher accuracy for mixing a liter of solution at a time. That site also has other good mechanical and digital scales with higher accuracy.

-- Ryuji Suzuki (rsuzuki@rs.cncdsl.com), September 07, 2001.

Try cruising your local pawn shops. Drug dealers are frequently selling/pawning their Dial-O-Grams. I bought one for less than $100 a few years back.

-- Michael Fraser (mdfraser@earthlink.net), September 09, 2001.