A good friend of mine got a brand new Lyman Digital scale for Christmas, a present from his wife.
He has a small building out from his house were he reloads.

He had been using a Lyman balance beam scale and in his building he had to jack up one side of the scale to get it to zero. He has to put about a 1/4" under the adjustment screw foot to get it zeroed. His loading bench is dead level both front to back and side to side. He called Lyman about this and they said as long as it zeroed and and was true with a check weight that it would be OK. They told him he could send it in and they would look at it but he hasn't sent it back to them.

Now to the really wild part of this story.
He took his brand new digital scale and set it on his loading bench and started the calibration process per the instructions. He told me that the instructions said it could take up to 24 hours for the calibration process the first time it was calibrated.
Well after 36 hours the scale never did calibrate.
He took the scale back in his house and started the calibration process and in less than 4 hours it calibrated perfectly.

He has a place in his basement that he could set up his loading bench so he took his scale down there and it would not calibrate. He put a heater in that room in the basement, thinking the cooler temperature was affecting it. The heater did nothing to help the scale.
He took the scale back up stairs in the house and the scale worked pefectly again.
He takes the scale back to the building and the scale will not calibrate. He even heated his building for 24 hours and the only thing this did was increase his electric bill.

He finally called Lyman and they told him they had never heard of this and wanted him to try to return it to MidwayUSA were his wife purchased it from.
Him and I both thought this was odd of Lyman, we thought Lyman would want to know if something screwy was going on with one of their products. He hasn't called Midway yet.

I told him that I frequented these type forums on the internet and that alot of knowledgeable people gave some excellent information about reloading.
He asked me if I would please post this about his problem and hopefully get some insight from the real world of realoaders.

All thought and comments about this problem will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!
Slufoot

Slufoot
I can't give you any help.I am completely mystified,as you are.
I can tell you that Lyman has no real reason to become involved because the scale DID work when once properly oriented,
I have an electronic scale from Midway that is also not really reliable.I only use it for weighing bullets and cases.
Frank

What happens with the balance beam scale in the house where the electronic scale worked? Also in the basement?
There maybe overhead highvolatge line affecting electronic equipment. Or a underground electrical service causing the problem. Just a thought. TF

I concur with jaguar ... bring the balance beam into the house, and see if it still needs a 1/4" shim in order to zero.

Just a guess, but sounds like some sort of electro magnetic field is the culprit.

Flourescent lights will most definetly affect balance beam scales but I don't know if the same is true for electronic scales or not. Wave a flourescent light near your balance beam scale sometime and you'll see what I mean.

Thanks for the replies so far folks!

What blows my mind is the balance beam in the house levels out perfect with out the 1/4" shim.
I'm not sure how the Balance beam works in the basement.

I mentioned the flourecent lights and he tried to calibrate with no lights on for 24 hours and went in without turning the lights on to check the next day. Still no luck!

There may be an EMI or RFI (ElectroMagnetic interference or Radio Frequency Interference) problem. They don't come exclusively from flourescent lights. Lab scales come with faraday shields to prevent the problem. You can also try a filter on the electric input, unless this is battery operated? Electrostatic fields will also affect a sensive scale, be it beam or electronic. It just attracts or repels the moving parts directly.

To test this theory, see if you can run the scale on battery? If so, put it in a shoebox lined with asluminmum foil. Ground the foil to a copper water pipe or use the metal screw on an outlet panel. You will need a hole in the box to read the scale to see if it zeros? You can simply lift the lid to start the calibration process, but put it on quickly before the scale has time to settle. The foil in the box and lid both should come out over their edges so they contact each other when you close the lid to complete the shield circuit.

If you can't use a battery, you will need an EMI filter on the A.C. power input. These can be had surplus or from an electronics supplier.

The shield will elimenate both AC and static electric interference except throufh the view port, so keep that hole in the shield small. If it turns out to solve the problem, then you have an electrically noisy environment and should may need to build a bigger shielded box with hand holes. Kind of like a bead blasting bos, but without the rubber gloves. Your friend may even need to ground himself with one of the anti-static wrist straps used to solder static-sensitive electronic parts. These are available through Radio Shack.

The whole leveling thing with the beam scale sounds funny. Check that he is really level on the bench. Use a beam level sith vials in the middle of the beam and flip the level over to check that you get the same level bubble both ways. This ensures the vial isn't crooked on the level (which I have seen). Be sure no magnets are around, or that, if the bench is metal, it hasn't become magnetized. If it still doesn't zero, either the pan weight is off or the fulcrum location is off. There really isn't much else left.

Take both scales to your place and test them. Gotta be something in his local thats causing the scales to react that way. Also take known weights from your scale at home and reweigh at his house at various places. TF

Didn't realize that flourescent lights could cause problems. I've been using my Dillon in the garage, with the lights about 3-4 feet above it. Also, the scale is plugged into the same circuit.... hmmm?

I do use check weights and check at the beginning and end of the session. So far - no problems.

Might want to check out the level used for leveling the bench, etc. Could be a simple problem of a defective level.

The beam scale is ok. Lyman (Ohaus for many of their older models) put a good range of leveling adjustment in their scales to allow for considerable variation in placement. The base need not be level, the beam will be level if it's right, so you only need to adjust the base until the "O" aligns with the beam pointer and all will be well.

If the scale has a screw head showing in the middle of the pan hanger, it covers a lid over a small cavity in the bottom. That cavity is loaded with small weights, bird shot or chips of solder, etc. and you should add or remove weight to get it into the operating range of the leveling screw. If you are shimming the left end remove a bit of the weight, if you must shim the right end add a bit of weight to bring it into range.

The digital is another problem. Digitals are finicky, tempermental (literally) and tend to drift in calibration. OK, so some folks may get a good one and that's good but most.... Well, I'm an old electronic instrument tech from the space program and you couldn't give me one of the things for measuring powder. Note that the vaunted RCBS "Life-time" warranty is limited to 2 years with their digital, giving you some idea of what they expect the life to be! If that thing was mine I'd send it back to Midway and try to get my money.

Meanwhile, out in my poorly heated garage, my 40 year old Lyman M5 beam scale (basically the same as today's RCBS 1010 and 505 scales) still reads dead on everytime I use it.

And, it isn't the flourescent lights, as such, that cause scales problems, it's the magnetic fields from the "ballast" in some fixtures that can do them evil. Keep a few feet away from the ballast and you will be fine. Four feet is enough for me.

The symptoms do sound like EMI or RFI to me. You could have him take a compass to the areas that show the problem. To see if it points north? Might indicate something. A radio technician with a service monitor or a well schooled amateur radio operator might expose the problem. If you know one. Some electic service companies have field personel with equiptment to find problems like this.

Cheezywan

Might check under building. Maybe sacred burial ground. Ancient bow hunter buried there maybe playing tricks. Never know. Have someone "witch" that spot with green willow branch . I have a son in law that is a preacher, he helps out with all my evil spirit problems. But really, it's difficult to understand the GRAVITY of this situation.

Two kinds of interference come up. One is noise that goes back through the ballast to the A.C. power lines and gets into other equipment from them. There is also direct RFI emmision off the tubes, acting like antennae. The gap in the ballast core emits a bit. If you take an ordinary battery-powered A.M. radio and turn it to a weak station, you can find the sources by listening to them wipe out the broadcast as you get close. PC's cause interference, too.

Noise in the power lines can be reduced by using a plug-in filter. Interference coming through the air requires a Faraday shield, either over the source or over the scale. Transparent shielding costs enough that foil over the scale is much easier to work with.

This place doesn't have any hefty power company lines outside, does it?

I vote we keep it simple and go with the defective level theory, as this other stuff seems a little extreme to me. Also do you have any air movement in the out building or basement? Try setting a hard ball on the bench and see if it wants to roll off, I know it's not a good test of level but if it's taking 1/4" shims to make the scale work, it'll go somewhere!

Sounds like you've got a large magnetized iron meteorite in the ground between the reload shack & the house. Which way does your compass point? Do you see UFO's at night?

As far as calibrating the digital scale - they can also be subject to air currents. I have mine set in a bookcase so it's enclosed on 5 sides to block drafts. Air currents caused by moving my hand in front of the scale will cause the reading to oscillate. Such oscillations during a calibration will cause the calibration to restart. Continual drafts will cause the calibration to restart indefinitely.

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. . .Do you see UFO's at night?. . .

Are you suggesting he fold my aluminum foil faraday shield into a hat? ;)

There's been very little mention of the problems of air movement, ie drafts. They are my biggest buggaboo. Intermittant drafts caused by walking around the bench, open windows, cracks under the door all drive me nuts till I find them. Pepe Ray

Pepe,

Drafts are another reason for a box, like the faraday cage. Lot's of lab scales are used in glass cabinets because of the draft issue, and the operator is expected to work through arm openings and close them before believing a final reading.

The last two electronic scales I've bought both have shields for side drafts. I believe the theory is that drafts seldom move straight up or down, mostly inflicting glancing blows (so to speak) on the scale pan. So, if you block the side breeze, you mostly have the problem covered. These shields are basically transparent weighing pan covers tall enough to allow room for a separate powder pan on the weighing pan underneath them. The shield has a hole in the top center to allow powder to be poured into the pan. It works quite well. One of these scales, the CED Pocket Scale, I have used outdoors at the range successfully. Unless there is an active breeze or gusting, the shield works just fine. I can even set it down in my range box for added air shielding so it will work in a mild breeze.

If you want to improvise a shield for an electronic scale, I would just find a clear plastic jar or other food container wide enough to invert over your weighing pan without touching it, and deep enough not to rest on the powder pan. Drill about a 1 ½” hole in the center of this container’s original bottom to let powder be poured in. Wipe the inside with a clothes dryer sheet to kill off static, and there you are. You might want to pick up some of the little rubber stick-on chassis feet that Radio Shack sells to center the new shield over the weighing pan. That will keep you from bumping the shield and knocking it into the pan, which could cause damage to an electronic scale. Weighing bullets or brass or cartridges through the hole in a cover requires tweezers. It is a bad idea to drop such a weight onto an electronic scale, and the tweezers let you set it on the pan.

For a balance beam scale, you will need a box big enough to cover the whole scale. Something intended for a single loaf of bread might be about right. You could put a hole in the side for reading the pointer and another for operating a trickler. You would load it to near weight, put the lid on and trickle to final weight. I would still use the anti-static treatment.

Not untill both scales are moved to a different location and tested will we know whats causing them to go haywire.

Both must be taken somewhere miles from the owners house. Setup and tested to findout what happens.

With the electronic scale it could be vibration from cars or trucks passing by on a local road.
Hopefully this will happen and the scale owner will find out what's causing his problems. TF