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- Feb 8, 2006
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Check the Big and Dandy Scale Thread... there is also an old overgrown archived version linked to from the first post of the thread I've linked to. There's a lot of discussion about where to buy them and how much they cost, and whether or not they're any good, and techniques for using a cheap mg scale.
Personally, I find that it's important to use them a certain way for them to be accurate. You need to make a tray first, or use the tray that comes with, depending on the brand. Put the tray (folded paperboard or something) on the scale... it will read something, perhaps a gram, maybe 2045mg (what my tray weighs). LEAVE IT THERE, DO NOT TARE IT. For some reason these scales are not good at picking up tiny measurements. If you have the scale at 0 and you try to weigh 20mg, or 100mg, it will be inaccurate. But if you weigh out the material on top of the tray, you can subtract the difference between the new measurement and the old one with just the tray. So let's say your tray weighs 2045mg by itself. You then put on some powder, and it reads 2139. You subtract them and find that the weight of the powder was 2139 - 2045 = 94mg. This way, even if you used a super sensitive scale for $500 and found out that tray plus the powder actually weighs 2187 instead of 2139, it doesn't matter because you were using relative measurements to get the difference between the two... if you used the expensive scale and the tray alone read 2093 instead of 2045, and with the powder it weighed 2187 instead of 2139, you'd still subtract 2187 - 2093 = 94mg.
Get it? There's tricks to using cheap mg scales effectively but they can be pretty effective until you get to substances where every mg matters (like DOXs and some of the potent 2C-Xs).
Personally, I find that it's important to use them a certain way for them to be accurate. You need to make a tray first, or use the tray that comes with, depending on the brand. Put the tray (folded paperboard or something) on the scale... it will read something, perhaps a gram, maybe 2045mg (what my tray weighs). LEAVE IT THERE, DO NOT TARE IT. For some reason these scales are not good at picking up tiny measurements. If you have the scale at 0 and you try to weigh 20mg, or 100mg, it will be inaccurate. But if you weigh out the material on top of the tray, you can subtract the difference between the new measurement and the old one with just the tray. So let's say your tray weighs 2045mg by itself. You then put on some powder, and it reads 2139. You subtract them and find that the weight of the powder was 2139 - 2045 = 94mg. This way, even if you used a super sensitive scale for $500 and found out that tray plus the powder actually weighs 2187 instead of 2139, it doesn't matter because you were using relative measurements to get the difference between the two... if you used the expensive scale and the tray alone read 2093 instead of 2045, and with the powder it weighed 2187 instead of 2139, you'd still subtract 2187 - 2093 = 94mg.
Get it? There's tricks to using cheap mg scales effectively but they can be pretty effective until you get to substances where every mg matters (like DOXs and some of the potent 2C-Xs).
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
