Need a Digital Scale for Coins and Other Light Weight Objects

I'm still using that 300g scale almost daily, with good results. It's definitely got enough capacity to read coin plus slab, probably even a slabbed 5oz puck. What I don't know is how much variation there is among slab weights. I'd suspect very little, but I don't know for sure.

Slabs also make it somewhat harder to check coin thickness, which is key -- it's easy to fake a coin with the right weight if you don't mind it being too thick.

 

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I can find out what an empty PCGS and NGC slab weigh, should be no problem.

What model do you have ? Name and/or Amazon link ?

 

Here's mine, although I got it from a Chinese eBay seller, not this Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Elect...id=1458069600&sr=8-8&keywords=300g+.01g+scale

Also shows up here:

http://www.amazon.com/0-01g-Digital...id=1458069600&sr=8-6&keywords=300g+.01g+scale

And here, with different branding:

http://www.amazon.com/Everydaysourc...id=1458069600&sr=8-2&keywords=300g+.01g+scale

My search terms, as reflected in those links, were 300g .01g scale. Some of the other scales might be as good or better, but those three links appear to show what I have. Prices range from $7 to $15 or so for my model. Some are Prime eligible.

 

$10 for a digital scale ? I thought they'd be $50-$100.

 

These got pretty good reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/Jewelry-Digit...ll_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=recent

This one isn't bad for about $20:

http://www.amazon.com/Pocket-Scale-...1458070827&sr=8-4&keywords=coin+digital+scale

 

Heck, back in my chemistry-set days, a scale sensitive to .01g would've cost hundreds. And they were all mechanical and analog, although I guess some might have had adding-machine-style digital readouts.

A load cell is about as cheap to make as any other monolithic electronic part, apparently, and all the other components are common and dirt-cheap. You might not get great absolute accuracy or accuracy over time/temperature variations, but if you've got a known weight to compare against, that shouldn't matter too much.

 

Read carefully, and remember the rounding function on the last digit The Amazon 300g .01 g in the small print says

Capacity: 10.5 oz (300g); Detail to 1/10 g which means it is accurate to .1 gram and rounds in the second decimal. Treat it as a 300 x .1gram.
Jim

 

Nope. $20 should do you, but heed desertgem's words and settle for a 100g capacity with true 0.01g resolution. 0.1g is insufficient. I own a DigiWeigh branded one (DW100AS) which can be had for a $20 bill and is as accurate as known-good weights can confirm.

 

Chinese scale makers are as bad at specifications such as resolution, as USB microscope makers are with 'magnification'

 

That's a typo in the description, or copy-pasted from one of their .1g scales. Trust me, the scale has .01g resolution. The last digit is significant; while I'm sure the thing isn't absolutely accurate to .01g across its entire range, it gives highly repeatable weights for a given coin or set of coins, and adding small scraps of paper can walk it up .01g at a time. (I haven't tried filing off 10mg at a time from a coin.)

 

That being fact makes it a very desirable instrument. I'm not surprised the technology has evolved to this level - it's only been the last 15 years or so that it was even possible to make an inexpensive digital scale with this kind of resolution, and capacity at that resolution is the obvious direction in which to evolve. You got me looking, and I had no trouble finding units with 500g capacity at 0.01g resolution.

It occurs to me, though, that the drug trade is likely what drove the development.

 

For what it's worth, here's the "documentation" that came with my scale. It's apparently the "300AX" model, according to this card. (Enlarged for readability -- the card is about 2x3 inches.) View attachment 486086
Not a word about full-scale accuracy, only display precision. It can be calibrated, but doesn't come with a calibration weight. I haven't studied its temperature stability, drift over time, dependence on battery level, etc. It gives plausible readings with coins of known weight, and repeatable readings when I go back and forth between coin "A" and coin "B".

 

Mine does.....

I'll let you know when I get it in a few days.