Scale is drifting

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Luis1

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Hello all, I have noticed recently that during my loading sessions my scale has been drifting anywhere from .1 - .3 tenths of a grain (most often) to .5 tenths of a grain (has only happened twice). It is on a wall mounted shelf that is fairly level, and is calibrated once at the beginning of the session. I don't turn the unit off and I leave the pan off of it when not in use. My loading bench is in my garage with (as far as I can tell) little to no air movement. I find I have to keep zeroing the scale multiple times during my loading session. Any thoughts? Scale is a Lyman accutouch 2000.

Thanks.
 
I've been researching electronic scales, the Lyman scales are known for this sort of problem apparently.

Possible causes (other than a faulty / poor quality scale)

fluorescent light
air currents - forced air furnace registers
power fluctuation - weak batteries, bad power adapter, overloaded circuit, etc.
warm-up - turn it on 30 mins before using
 
Canuck525 said:
They've been using out-houses too but I much prefer the comfort and convenience of indoor plumbing.....Just sayin.
Click to expand...

If your indoor plumbing occasionally spit everything back at you and stopped working for a day every week, it would be the equivalent of the cheap electronic scales. Not a great comparison.
 
Hmm never thought of electronic equipment near it. I have a laptop about 2 feet away on the same shelf, I'll move it and see if that helps. I have overhead ceiling shop light tubes but I'm not sure if they are led or florescent. They have covers over the lights so shouldn't be that much of an issue? The scale is plugged in and never gets turned off.
 
Like Ganderite says, no fluorescent lights; LED lighting definitely helps. Get rid of RF noise in the immediate area. Wireless routers can be a real problem if they are nearby. If you can't eliminate local sources of RF, build a metal covered box as an RF shield to cover the entire scale, and leave yourself enough room to work inside. It can be as simple as a cardboard box with the front open, covered in aluminum foil and grounded. It won't be a complete Faraday shield since it is open on one side and will act as an EM shield but it might help.

A better quality digital scale almost always works better than a cheaper one. If you cannot eliminate the drifting by the above, then it just might be due to the inherent error due to the quality of the scale, and the only fix might be replacement with something better.

Rick.
 
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Well right now my scale is plugged into a power bar. Would that be a cause? Also the ceiling lights are led
 
As others have indicate do not have any wireless or cordless phone near the scale. Ferrite core snaps on the power cord would help with interference and drift as well. Static electricity could cause drift as well from what I observed with my gem pro.
 
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