Milligram scales

ask a drug dealer

Ah so you don't want a stylus pressure gauge then. The Shure one was very crude and consisted of a pivoted arm with a mirror showing its position against a scale, and a sliding weight also with a scale on that part of the arm. The idea was to put your picup on one end, adjust the weight by sliding until the mark in the mirror was on the centre, and read off the weight on the scale where the sliding weight was. Just don't breath while doing it.. grin. Brian

Don't knowingly know any.

And they don't come with nice digital displays... :-)

I'm tempted to ask why you need to weigh such small quantities. If you're weighing something soluble that will eventually be used as a solution, weigh out one gram, dissolve in 1 litre, and then every ml of solution contains 1 mg.

Or there is this

The leader in this field of weighing mass to that level of precision and accuracy would be Sartorius

Oh yes....

I have a 500g fullscale 0.01g resolution scale, ten-twenty-off-ebay quality. Checked with weights that were calibrated a few decades ago: good enough! Linearity, reproducibilty, etc. all within a few least significant digits.

There are many, many, similar scales with 0.001g resolution on the Bay. Some come with one or two weights, for calibration -- go for it. And perhaps an apothecary/lab tech/pharmacist/drug dealer could check the calibration weights on a scale that is known to be accurate...

Thomas Prufer

A pdf of the data sheet

Interesting - but rather missed my insistence on "cheap"! I have been looking at the ones from about £6 upwards on ebay, aliexpress, etc. My need is not sufficient to pay out over £40 let alone hundreds. Nice machines though they might be.

Yes - it was the huge number that made me ask!

Good that at least some are decent enough. Thanks.

Thanks - yes, that is the sort of thing I have been looking at. Good to get a specific item to look at.

I went with one that I liked the look of, also not the very cheapest, but maybe double the lowest price. Still close to nothing...

The scales including postage cost less than a single certified accurate weight

I'd go for cheap scales and one or two weights, or more, depending on your accuracy and linearity requirements, borrowed or bought, and from a reputable source.

Thomas Prufer

Indeed.

Maybe someone in alt.drugs knows of a good balance :-)

The ones with the sliding glass doors on the side, help keep air currents in the room, from wiggling the pan. This is an example of what I'm thinking of.

If I bought an instrument based on strain gauges, I'd buy a set of calibration weights for it too. If it was an old pan balance, then using calibrated weights is part of normal operating procedure. (Calibrated weights and tweezers to load/unload.)

I can't find pictures of our old milligram balance, but this is generally a problem with labs anyway. Very few pictures to show you what typical setups look like.

If I bought the sample Amazon item above, I'm sure the plod would be sitting in a car out in front of the house :-)

Paul

A 20p piece is 5g. Obviously new and clean. Other coins are available.

Several on E-bay

I have half a dozen similar scales. My favourite is

These cheap and cheerful scales clearly have limitations regarding accuracy but the value for money is astounding.

I have something similar. I don't need milligram accuracy but I sometimes measure small quantities of salt & winemaking ingredients & my normal kitchen scale only has 2 g resolution (& I assume it has poor relative accuracy close to zero).

polygonum_on_google has brought this to us :

I bought a 0.01g digital for weighing out when thinking to make up e-liquids, along with a set of clibration weights. I was on the nose all the way through, but didn't cost a lot - just one month wait from China.

I've found those cheap milligram Chinese balances badged 'Diamond' you get on Ebay are surprisingly good. If you want absolute accuracy (say you need to weigh out exactly 5mg of something, then possibly not) but they will certainly consistently discriminate between two samples when one is only 1 or 2mg heavier/lighter than the other. For under 15 quid you really can't complain!