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Stylus force gauge accuracy; digital vs. mechanical? (Shure or the like)

oldhifiguy said:
well there are some folks that are quite as hoyty toyty as others on this forum so I'll bow out of the discussion.
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I don't believe I've ever been called "hoyty toyty" about anything, and as Mark said, your opinion is wanted, I simply don't want the thread dragged into the side subject of which is better. Not wanting to derail another posters thread on needing stylus force gauge help led me to start this thread for a specific purpose. No offence was intended at all.
 
dread31 said:
Never had a problem with my Shure. I've been setting up carts with it for about 15 years, always come out great. Yeah, the digitals might be a little more accurate, but
I just can't see it justifying the extra expense.

Dave
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The Shure costs $20. You can get a scale on ebay for $12 shipped. So this extra expense thing--I don't know where that's coming from. In addition, the scale is versatile. I have used it to weigh carts, hardware, headshells, estimate arm mass, etc. And yes, like others, I have constructed a simple platform for the area between the arm rest and the platter so that the height is the same as a record on the platter.
 
oldhifiguy said:
forget the digital junk with batteries and get the shure. accurate, reliable over time and easy to use.
you can put it on the bare platter and eliminate the recodr thickness. jeez this stuff isn't rocket science.
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agreed. i look at it this way.....

the shure tfg never needs batteries, is reasonably accurate, and with proper care should last indefinitely.
 
Urizen said:
Yep, old school here. I've thought about trying the Shure or a digital, but I'm not convinced it's worth the dollars with my cheaper setup. Good thread.

arg.jpg
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I have one of those exact scales. About as cheap a scale as can possibly be made. I also have a nice little digital scale. When I compared the 2 against each other for accuracy the junker missed the boat by 2 one hundredths of a gram. That's plenty close enough for my applications but I had to know for sure as well and that's why I bought the digital scale. If nothing else the digital scale looks cool and makes for a nice addition to the turntable goodie collection.
 
outlawmws said:
(...) So, can I ask for some of you D scale owners to try it, without changing any arm settings, at different heights, and report? If it is as Bill suggests, insignificant, great. If it starts being a significant %, then not so great. (...)
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Did it just now. But first things first: What did I expect? "Well," I thought "it's a momentum thing. Force times way." Assuming some 220 mm for the effective length of a typical arm, I thought that one would already have to change the measurement level pretty considerably (a couple of cm) in order to produce only a change of 5 mm for the "way", which would result in a difference of a tad over 2 % for the momentum. This would equal to measuring e.g. 1.47 instead of 1.5 g. Hardly relevant... But, of course, that was a simplified model which doesn't cover stuff like perpendicular or excentric counterweights et cetera - and I'm far from being good in math and physics, too. So I was curious what the pratice would show...

For the verification I used one of my Philips AF777 turntables and both an AKG PL-10 and my cheap digital scale with 0.1 g resolution. And I used a tracking weight setting of ca. 1.75 g, 'cause that was already set anyway. Then I measured with the PL-10 directly on the platter and lifted up some 6 mm using a matchbox as well as with the digital scale directly on the platter, on the plinth using matchboxes to bring the measurement level up to platter level and also lifted up by some 6 and some 12 mm. As I had already assumed, the two measurements with the PL-10 had practically the same result. With the digital scale, only the position with the scale on two layers of matchboxes on the platter (i.e. needle ca. 25 mm above platter level) would lower the reading hardly by 0.1 g - for the other three positions it remained constant.

Hence, I guess, I can consider my expectations and simplified calculations verified: Unless one would want precision in the 0.01 g range, it doesn't really matter whether one measures on record level or a couple of mm above or below.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini
 
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I have a "real" jewelers scale that cost more than I can to say. Used it when panning for gold to weigh small amounts of dust and flake. Good to 0.01 grain. Lovely machine. Also have Harbor Freight $8 (on sale) digital scale made in china. It's within 0.02 grains of the jewelers scale. Both sit next to the platter and equal the height of platter and LP so there is no vertical offset to speak of (<1mm). Both are WAY better than the counterweight drums on the back of any of my TT's. Most are off by around 5~10%. Don't see a hassle and I strongly recommend the Harbor Freight scale to help with headshell weights, fastener weights and such when trying to hit a target running weight for easy swaps :)
 
thank you lini for doing the measurements, I have wondered how accurate my LC-50 was on my Technics 1210 platter.
 
I just got in the mail Thursday a digital scale and had wondered as to if I should use it with the platter on or off, as the scale is on the thick side.
Anyway I tried it both ways and found it was more accurate with the platter off vs on.
Table in question is a Technics SL1800MKII. It does work better than my Shure which i bought in 1976. I should add that the scale is about the same thickness as my platter so it worked out fine.
 
Stanton681EEES said:
I just got in the mail Thursday a digital scale and had wondered as to if I should use it with the platter on or off, as the scale is on the thick side.
Anyway I tried it both ways and found it was more accurate with the platter off vs on.
Table in question is a Technics SL1800MKII. It does work better than my Shure which i bought in 1976. I should add that the scale is about the same thickness as my platter so it worked out fine.
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I agree that it does make a difference, I actually decided to order a digital scale just for ease (see earlier post on RCBS scale) and found one with .1 grain (yes I mean grain not gram) accuracy for $22 shipped. I plan on using this for more than just VTF so I felt justified in the $2 more than the shure scale. I will do some more testing of it when it arrives.

I actually don't care how close my VTF is, I just get curious and want to know weird crap like this. I hope people don't misinterpret this kind of curiosity with someone actually asking a question about what is the best choice or how to do it like the other thread. I am pretty sure that was the intent of the OP even though several people seemed to take this a different way. I really enjoy having this type of community where people can discuss these kind of things without too much bent out of shapeness going on.

Have a great day!!
 
Some interesting results so far. Thanks to those that have made the effort. I'm curious of it will be consistent across more arms.
 
bsujeep said:
I agree that it does make a difference, I actually decided to order a digital scale just for ease (see earlier post on RCBS scale) and found one with .1 grain (yes I mean grain not gram) accuracy for $22 shipped. I plan on using this for more than just VTF so I felt justified in the $2 more than the shure scale. I will do some more testing of it when it arrives.
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So, fill us in on what you found, and where you found it....
 
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