Platform Scales.

[LeeH]

I have noticed you can get platform scales for around 60 notes of flea bay.

I'm thinking I can weave a set into my 3V build.

The smallest increment ones I can find are 50g steps. Do anybody use these type of scales under their mash tun?

I'm thinking it's quite a decent way to measure grain and water?

[LeeH]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/141053488422?redirect=mobile

[Matt12398]

If you're doing it properly you should get the ones that a few people on here such as Barneey, Belter and I think Fil have. They are much better build quality but are over £100 each. I think it's one of those situations where you either buy you can afford now and end up buying twice or pay for the more expensive and better quality one and buy once.

[Belter]

I toyed with the idea of buying those. I spoke to Abcon who told me how different the scales were to the more professional ones I eventually went for. As Matt says, if I'd bought those if be saving to buy better now. The ones I have are professional quality and can be recalibrated and have an auto off feature that you can override so they don't turn off mid brew. That is important. I think I paid £100 + delivery though

[chastuck]

I toyed with the idea of buying those. I spoke to Abcon who told me how different the scales were to the more professional ones I eventually went for. As Matt says, if I'd bought those if be saving to buy better now. The ones I have are professional quality and can be recalibrated and have an auto off feature that you can override so they don't turn off mid brew. That is important. I think I paid £100 + delivery though

And what scales did you buy in the end may I ask?

[Belter]

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.vi ... 0761464915

They often go much cheaper than that from that seller via auction

[LeeH]

That's a lot of cash, still need to buy my mash tun. Best start saving.

Thanks for the info, you saved me buying thinks twice like I normally end up doing.

[Fil]

While i have got some of the L2 scales, Rob here viewtopic.php?f=6&t=66459 seems to be using the ones your originally looking at. his build using bottom drains and feet solves the sitting a bigger pot on the smaller scales issue.. perhaps he could shed some light on use too..??

My experience buying the L2 tho wasnt too good, i ebay auctioned and made an offer got a counter offer back and bit their arm off, at £130 after watching the auctions go for £140+ for weeks.. - got the scales and they didnt work, sent em back and the replacement didnt work, got a 3rd sent out (me thinks the 1st again??) and still not working!! was offered full refund But the auctions were still selling em for more and im cheap so i decided to wait for an engineer to fix em,, Months (4) later i have working scales Finally!!

One feature of the l2 scales is a usb connection which if u get a driver will allow u to plug into an xp pc for serial comms, tho no s/w to support it so u will need to access the serial port yourself to use it, or nick mine:).. if your running s 64bit version of win8 the driver inf file isnt compatable, i found that out today but give me a few late nights and i will sort that (fingers crossed) i got a 3 line vb forms app ready to read the data stream from the scales. but will have to install it on the tiny winxp netbook to test it seems..

[rob-63]

I toyed with the idea of buying those. I spoke to Abcon who told me how different the scales were to the more professional ones I eventually went for. As Matt says, if I'd bought those if be saving to buy better now. The ones I have are professional quality and can be recalibrated and have an auto off feature that you can override so they don't turn off mid brew. That is important. I think I paid £100 + delivery though

As Fil mentioned, I have the Proship 181kg ones from ebay mentioned in the op. I paid £49.99 a month or so ago.

They can be recalibrated to any thing of a known weight (so the instructions say), and they also do stay on throughout the brew.

I have only used them the once so far, and they appeared to work ok. I didn't actually use them to weigh out the grain (as when I did so I forgot I had them under the mash tun!), and not sure if I will if grain needs to be measured more accurately than 50g. I used them to check the intial volume of water that I underlet into the mash tun, and then later when sparging to check the in and out rates from the mash tun were at the same rate.

The build quality seems fine to me, but no doubt better ones are available at a price. The only thing that I would like them to have that they don't, is the ability to measure to the gram, but not sure I'd pay £50 plus for that extra.

[Belter]

That's good to hear from someone who actual bought them.

Mine only does 50g resolution I think.

[och29]

I have three of those as well, they're great. The instructions/manual might be useful for those interested.

[roscoe]

I have the cheaper proship and it works just fine and can be easily calibrated.
Just remember to make sure another pot or something isn't leaning against it

[boingy]

Even the cheap ones seem a lot of money for something you can do with a stick.

[roscoe]

it is a budget buster, granted, but I was fed up weighing out say 10kg of malt in several containers getting distracted, losing count and generally making a lot of mess in the house due to the powder effect. For me its a big sack over the shoulder straight into the mash tun,... ya dancer.

I love it

I also use it for doughing in which is now just laziness compared to looking at sight glass in HLT, if I had the motivation I'd get a better instant hot water supply and dump the HLT altogether......

[Fil]

Anyone with proship L2 scales with the usb out want the drivers and a lil prototype app to read the scales output and query it pm me. so far its just reading the weight and capable of sending data requests, the scales operate in 2 modes continuos output and queried output.
so far ive got it floating on xp. probably work on win vista and 7 but win8(64bit) wont read n process the inf driver file, anyone wanna tackle that for us? or at least give me a pointer..