TECH Tip: Reduce Electronic Scale Drift with Static Guard Spray
Apparently reducing static charges on and around electronic scales can reduce their propensity to drift, lessening the problem of “wandering zero”. Just how and why static charges interfere with scale performance is unclear, but many shooters have noticed that static electricity can cause electronic scales to behave strangely. So how do you reduce static charges around your digital balance? GS Arizona, creator of the Rifleman’s Journal Blog, has found a very simple solution — an anti-static aerosol spray — that, by all indications, actually works. When this “spray-can solution” was suggested to GS by a fellow shooter, GS was skeptical. However, he tried the stuff and he says that it really does help the scale maintain zero over time, with much less observed drift.
Static Guard Reduced Scale Drift
GS Arizona explains that the use of “Static Guard” spray helped mitigate the problem of a drifting zero on his Ohaus Navigator electronic scale. He writes: “My electronic scale… suffers from drifting zero (as they all seem to). I’ve read dozens of forum posts about drift and how to minimize its occurrence, so I know this problem isn’t limited to my scale or my workshop. Sometime last year, John Lowther mentioned the use of anti-static spray as a solution to the drift problem. John stated that the spray had virtually eliminated drift for him.”
GS Arizona found that the Static Guard actually worked: “The spray works great, just as John said it would. I spray all surfaces that I touch with my hands and arms as well as the pan (top and bottom), the metal tray on which the pan rests and the table under the scale. In six months or so of using the spray I’ve re-applied it about two or three times; it certainly isn’t something that you need to do each time you sit down to load. Before using the spray, it was not uncommon for me to re-zero the scale 10 times in the course of loading 72 rounds; now it might need it once during a session.”
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Tags: Anti-Static Spray, Digistal Scale, Electronic Scale, Reloading, Static Guard
Every laboratory uses some form of a static guard on their scales regularly.
It improves instruments no end and should be used for shooting scales too.
There isn’t a description how of the usage. Is he spraying directly on the scale, or just in the air in the around it?
Ditto on Robs comment. Doesn’t the spray accumulate over time ? Do you wipe down the old layer of spray ?
Drifting zero from environmental static would indicate to me that the processor board(s) are not humidity sealed.
I wipe my scale and the area around it with a used dryer sheet. I put it in the powder hopper after I dump the powder at the end of a session. Replace the sheet when I think about it.
Dryer sheets sound like an excellent idea! I am going to hypothesize a mechanism or two by which static charge fouls up scale readings.
Model 1: First of all, nearly all electric measurements are eventually reduced to a potential – a voltage.
I would guess that with scales the pressure on the pan squishes a piezoelectric transducer. This pressure on a quartz or ceramic element electrically polariazes the ceramic. Think of those squishy toys where you squeeze them and the eyes bug out. One eye positive, and the eye on the opposite side negative.
A voltage probe then measures the voltage from those separated charges, and the remaining circuit converts that into a weight and displays it.
A stray charge imbalance produces a field or voltage which combines (superimposes) with that produced by the piezoelectric sensor. The voltage probe can only measure the combination. That is, the stray charge adds noise to the weight signal.
Model 2. Piezoelectric devices are reversable. -Turn about is fair play. . .
By that I mean that while squishing the ceramic makes a voltage, putting a voltage across it can squish the ceramic too.
This is why we have both piezoelectric speakers and piezoelectric microphones.