The article below is courtesy of Mr. Boon Lim who has been involved in the weighing industry for many years. It really hammers home the points that we have been trying to discuss with customers for literally decades!\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are differences in quality between certain brands of scales<\/a>. We’ve discussed this numerous times over the years either here in our learning center or on our Youtube channel<\/a> or perhaps via phone or email with you. A lot of times it’s a balancing act between value & accuracy<\/a>. Many customers don’t have the budget or the requirements for the top of the line most expensive scale… but they also don’t need to buy the cheapest scale<\/a> under the sun either. Let’s take a look at what Boon found when he purchased some of the cheapest scales available online. We hope you enjoy the article below.<\/p>\n Have you noticed a quality shift in the weighing industry? Quality standards have So, we bought some of the \u201cBest Selling\u201d, highly rated, affordable scales and balances to test the quality.<\/p>\n Yes, with 2-day free shipping too.<\/p>\n Our discoveries were astounding…<\/p>\n At first glance we found non-UL approved AC adapters and direct wall plugs into scales What prompted this experiment is the amount of recent new brands in the US market. Upon further investigation Online Sellers approached these electronic companies and offered to help sell their products direct to end-users through fulfillment centers across the US. The number of units sold are between 300,000 to 500,000 over the last few years.<\/p>\n These new companies outsourced everything from blank scale casings, load cells, First up, product evaluation.<\/p>\n Scales we purchased:<\/p>\n
decreased significantly on consumer scales with \u201cassembly only\u201d operations making big
waves in the scale community. Large sellers are dominating the online retail space for
consumers, and this is not any different for scales. Whether you support the
unstoppable rise of these ecommerce giants or not, there is no denying the profound
impact associated with their operation.<\/p>\n
without UL. As we all know, overheating or short circuitry can cause electrical shocks
and fires. UL adapters are built by larger transformer companies and cost twice as
compared to non-UL parts. We reached out to UL Solutions headquarters specifically
and were surprised to hear that electrical products sold in the US do not need to bear a
UL marker legally.<\/p>\n
We managed to trace back all the way to the manufacturers in China, who, surprise, are
not even scale manufacturers!<\/p>\n
displays, cables, adapters, display PCBAs and even arranged for independent software
engineers to change price computing scales\u2019 software to counting scale software. This
technique has proven successful for these operations. However, at what cost to the
consumer? Let\u2019s dissect below.<\/p>\n\n
performing 6,000 division, 30kg x 5g balance sells for $200 – $900
depending on features. Note the 6,000 divisions specification.<\/li>\n
generally be called precision balances and would sell for several thousand
dollars each but would also have tight accuracy specifications and be
appropriate for actual laboratory usage.<\/li>\n
that generally includes install, warranty and certification at ~ $300+.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n