Anyone automate their balance powder scale ?

[mikes farm]

Has anyone added a photo interrupter to their beam powder scales to make a poor man's digital powder scale ? Thinking something like a small stepper motor connected to trickler and a Arduino. Use a photo xmit and rcv (maybe from a old mouse) to break the beam when you hit zero. I use a lot of surplus powder that does not meter well and do not mind dipping, but a cheap auto trickler would come in handy.

[jcren]

Copiers and printers use dozens of U-shaped photo sensors both open-on and open-off to sense the "flags" that see where the paper is. Kinda my area.

[EDG]

The AMT / Lyman Autoscale was in production between 10 and 30 years ago.
It is an Ohaus beam same as the RCBS 10-10 beam with the photo cells. I have 3 of them and I prefer them to any other powder dispenser.

Nothing works better for stick powders like 4831, 4350 and SR4759.

The orange autoscales are all branded Lyman.

The brown Autoscales are mostly AMT though I have one that is Lyman also. They are all the same product except for the power supply connectors.


128783

[jmorris]

Google promethous powder scale.

[Love Life]

Google promethous powder scale.

Yep. You can lease it...

[jmorris]

He didn't ask if anyone sold one...

[Silfield]

Check out this http://www.targetmasteruk.com/
They work really well and are used a lot over here by the F and FTR boys. He also tunes standard 505 type scales.

[Lars-K]

It would be easy to build one yourself. Use a powder dripper with a 12v motor. Then use a Photoelectric switch to control the feeding.
There is a ton of them at eBay. A Chinese Omron copy will set you back $12 or so.
Link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/E3S-GS30E4-Diffuse-Groove-Shape-Photoelectric-Switch-Sensor-/301420622233

128927


Photoelectric Switch

[jmorris]

Lars-k that one does not ship to the USA.

Found this today too.

Home build.
http://458socomforums.com/index.php?topic=2373.0

[Lars-K]

This one does: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1PCS-Diffuse-Groove-Type-Photoelectric-Switch-Sensor-E3S-GS30E4-NPN-NO-3-Wire-/261625074918


From the US an Omron: http://www.ebay.com/itm/OMRON-E3S-GS3E4-PHOTOELECTRIC-SWITCH-12-24V-DC-SENSOR-B442699-/291344271242

Same, but new from China: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SENSOR-2M-12-24-NEW-SWITCH-VDC-E3SGS3E4-E3S-GS3E4-PHOTOELECTRIC-OMRON-/331362729990

[EDG]

It would be easy to buy one and get some ideas.
The AMT/Lyman has two tricklers one fast and one slow.
Both run until it gets close to the target weight.
Then the high speed trickler shuts off and the slow speed brings the beam up to the set weight.
Having 2 tricklers makes it much faster than a single trickler would be.
Having the slow speed trickler only at the end of the load dispensing makes the final weight very consistent.

Not having to reinvent the wheel has significant value.
Some features you might want to duplicate.
Some features like not having a powder dump port you might want to correct.
These tricklers have a design issue that probably caused their demise. However it is an easy problem to fix in about 10 minutes at no cost. If you do not test one of these and discover the problem you might design the same problem into your new scale.


He didn't ask if anyone sold one...

[jmorris]

These tricklers have a design issue that probably caused their demise. However it is an easy problem to fix in about 10 minutes at no cost. If you do not test one of these and discover the problem you might design the same problem into your new scale.

What is the issue/problem?

[dudel]

What is the issue/problem?

I suspect air movement could be a real issue.

[EDG]

It is hard to believe unless you use one of the scales a lot and have it happen several times.

There are 2 tricklers rotated by small motors. The trickler tube is hollow and threaded to move the powder.
At the back of the tube there is a port milled to pickup the powder. This port in inside the body under the clear vertical reservoir. The side wall of the housing is about 1/2" or so from the trickler tube.

In operation in about once every 20 to 40 loads dispensed the trickler tube will jam to a halt.
You can reach the outboard end of the tube, turn it backward against the motor torque and it will run again.
This will continue to happen so you stop and dump the powder and your find nothing. You run it in air and nothing ever jams. Put the powder back in and it will eventually jam again. SR4759 is worse than 4831. 4831 and 4350 jam about the same. So when you get tired of the jamming let it jam. With the power still on and without touching the trickler tubes turn it upside down to dump the powder.

What you will find is a little bridge of powder kernels that run from the trickler tube to the side wall of the housing.
The trickler tube has a milled flat that eventually will get 3 to 4 kernels of powder perfectly aligned and they will wedge into a solid obstruction and jam against the milled flat. It is hard to believe it even when you see it. All you need to fix it is to take a Swiss pattern file and break the milled flat edge so it is a tiny bit irregular. When that surface is a little uneven the powder kernels cannot stack straight across and it never jams. I have 3 of them. One I have never used. The other two both had the jamming problem and were corrected easily.



What is the issue/problem?