When weighing for dosing, do you remove the basket from the portafilter? You must have to do this with the pocket scales, since most only go up to 500g.

I've been trying to get my dosing more accurate with my kitchen scale, but its precision is only 1g. I just tare with the portafilter on the scale, dose, then re-weigh. It seems like it would be quite a pain to remove the basket for every shot. Am I missing something?

As noted previously on this thread, that's one of the advantages of having a ridgeless basket (the other advantage of ridgeless being all the "hand-to-eye" coordination practice improving your aim when emptying into the knockbox... )

r-gordon-7

I ended up buying a Satrue SA-H500.

M: 500g
d: .05g

I chose this one because it isn't made in China. The manufacturer is not only here in Taiwan, but right in my city. So far, it's been good. It's very repeatable. I don't really need it quite that accurate, but I figured something at .05g is more likely to be accurate between 14.0 and 14.2 grams. I don't have anything that I know the true weight of, so I haven't tested the accuracy yet.

The only real drawback is that it's a little slow. If I take the item I'm weighing off the scale, it takes about 2-3 seconds to zero out. That's not such a big issue, unless you want to use it to pour water or something. Also, there seems to be a tare issue if I completely take the container off the scale then put it back on, but I can't really think of any circumstances where this would be a serious issue.

I've only had it for two weeks, so time will tell more.

I paid 1,000 TWD, which is approximately 30 USD. The owner asked me what I wanted if for. I said for making coffee. He asked if I had a coffee shop. I said it was for making coffee at home. He had a pretty good chuckle with his employees about the foreigner who wanted to pay 1,000 TWD just for a digital scale to make coffee at home. (Don't get the wrong idea, he was a really nice guy.)

I bought one of those "Made in Taiwan, or Hong Kong" digital scales, for a little over $10, from Deal Extreme. I have used it for about 8 months. It surprises me how good it is - the scale is amazingly sensitive - really astonishingly well made, for the money. It has no problem differentiating a couple of tenths of a gram.

Howard

I think some (all?) of the products from DealExtreme ship from Hong Kong, but I don't think they're made in either Hong Kong or Taiwan. I think the stuff they sell is made in China. Now that's not necessarily a bad thing because, as this technology gets older, it gets cheaper and is easier to replicate. However, there comes a point where the goods are just made too cheaply. I have no first-hand knowledge with DealExtreme, but there seem to be more positive comments about their stuff than negative ones. Even though I live in Taiwan, which many consider to be part of China, there is still a noticeable difference in quality between 'Made in China' and 'Made in Taiwan'.

erics wrote:If you remove the spring from the PF, it makes weighing a breeze. If you're making multiple drinks in succession and this is your only basket, it can be a PITA.

Using a ridgeless basket also helps. I found that by tweaking the p/f spring I can easily slip the basket in & out of my bottomless p/f for dosing yet it doesn't pop out when I tap the p/f on the knockbox bar.

My Deal extreme scale keeps working well also. It came it extra handy for the Pinewood Derby this year. No more going to the post office to weigh our car.

I had an opportunity to test my Satrue SA-H500 against a jewelry scale. Jewelry scale: 2.551g. Satrue SA-H500: 2.55g (because it only goes in increments of 0.05g). Good enough for me.

HB wrote:Ducatista, I merged your question with a thread on the same subject. There are lots of choices; the key deciding factors for me were the auto-shutoff period (preferably one minute or more; many turn off after 30 seconds), battery type, and convenience. Most of the time I'm using one with a backlit display that uses lithium batteries. They need replacing once or twice a year versus my backup that lasts a year or two because it has no backlighting. On the other hand, I like the touchscreen display.

<image>
Search on touch screen 500 gram scale

Well my scale (see above) has not lasted very long at all. All of a sudden I get lots of numbers on the screen and all I can get is an ERR 2 message on the screen. Repeat this over and over if you replace the batteries. There is no mention of these error messages in the little (inadequate) instructions that come with the scale.

I'm back using my sturdier one that takes the "coin batteries". I have 10 (cheap) new batteries on the way from ebay. I hope they last a few months