Never been done before balance scale experiment.....badaboom ;-)

[BoydAllen]

By Thursday we should know. I have been playing with a new old stock Chinese made RCBS 10-10 balance reloading scale that I wrote about in another thread. The scale seems to be of good quality and tuned up OK (within the limits of my skill) but it is apparent that the magnets that are part of the damping system are weaker than my old USA produced scale of the same model. Sooo I ordered some little but powerful cylindrical neodymium magnets that I plan on putting on the bottom of each of the scale's magnets, held there by magnetic attraction, opposite poles facing each other. Just now (early Monday afternoon) after checking on my order with the magnet company, I spent a couple of minutes with one of their engineers to find out if my plan has a chance of working, that is strengthening the magnet field of the damping system. He said that it should. If this works, I believe that it will be the first time that it has been done. On the other hand, if it does not, I will be out ten dollars for some very powerful little refrigerator magnets. I was also going to mention that I would have to remember to keep them away from my flash drives, but taking the precaution of looking that up first, I learned that that is not true, so it is only my hard drives that I need to be concerned about, because I know that they are vulnerable, and verifying that, something that I had not thought of, my credit cards. I will let you know if this works.

 

[Twoboxer]

Credit cards and many drivers' licenses, gift cards, etc . . . but good luck with the experiment!

 

[Rsadams]

Nice.. The magnets in mine are very weak also..

 

[BillPa]

Boyd, I'm a complete dolt when it comes to posting videos so here is a ink to my tuned D5 with only one 1/2"x1/2x 1/4" N45.
http://tinypic.com/m/jb7j28/3
The original magnets in the tuned 505 I'm currently using are plenty "good'nuf"
http://tinypic.com/m/jj8zrq/3

Bill

 

[BoydAllen]

On he one with the single magnet, how is the sensitivity when trickling? Man that is some serious damping. I take it that the 1/2 square faces of the magnet are its poles. I never thought of using a single magnet. I noticed the piece of foam in the notch....simple and direct. I like that. Thanks for the info, and videos.

 

[shoot4fun]

When I saw the title I thought this was surely an fguffey thread.

 

[ireload2]

Wow excellent dampening.

 

[BoydAllen]

When I saw the title I thought this was surely an fguffey thread.

You really know how to hurt a guy ;-)

 

[BillPa]

On he one with the single magnet, how is the sensitivity when trickling?

No problem. With the aid of a cell phone to help my old for eyes I can see it detect one gradual of extruded added to the pan. I originally tried two 45s but the beam moved like it was in molasses on cold day. IIRC it required something like five or six seconds to zero.

Bill

 

[BoydAllen]

Sounds like I need to add my magnets one at a time and test with one before going to two. You know it you lay a flat piece of steel across both poles of a horseshoe magnet they say it makes it stronger. On the 10-10s magnets they have parts on their front side that stick out, to interlock with the magnet assembly frame. Since I got the copper blade properly centered, I probably have room for thin pieces on the inside of the magnet frame, connecting both ends of each magnet. that might give me just a slight boost.
Added later: The part about the bar of steel was wrong, I went back and did some more looking. What I had remembered was the force required to remove the bar, not the field strength with it in place, which is weaker.

 

[BillPa]

Boyd, I may have misspoke, they may have been 50s not 45s. Its been about two years since I bought them.
http://www.magnet4sale.com/n50-1-2x1-2x1-4-neodymium-rare-earth-block-magnet/
I initially tried two but together they over dampened the beam. Using only one was the ticket.

Bill

 

[Brians356]

FWIW my quest to replace OEM M5 magnets with neodymiums (internally, not externally augmenting the existing ones), worked great:

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/on-beam-scales-part-two.3906350/page-8#post-36833260

 

[John Russell]

By Thursday we should know. I have been playing with a new old stock Chinese made RCBS 10-10 balance reloading scale that I wrote about in another thread. The scale seems to be of good quality and tuned up OK (within the limits of my skill) but it is apparent that the magnets that are part of the damping system are weaker than my old USA produced scale of the same model. Sooo I ordered some little but powerful cylindrical neodymium magnets that I plan on putting on the bottom of each of the scale's magnets, held there by magnetic attraction, opposite poles facing each other. Just now (early Monday afternoon) after checking on my order with the magnet company, I spent a couple of minutes with one of their engineers to find out if my plan has a chance of working, that is strengthening the magnet field of the damping system. He said that it should. If this works, I believe that it will be the first time that it has been done. On the other hand, if it does not, I will be out ten dollars for some very powerful little refrigerator magnets. I was also going to mention that I would have to remember to keep them away from my flash drives, but taking the precaution of looking that up first, I learned that that is not true, so it is only my hard drives that I need to be concerned about, because I know that they are vulnerable, and verifying that, something that I had not thought of, my credit cards. I will let you know if this works.

I replaced the magnets in my Lyman M-5 about 40 years ago (whenever they came out... because I bought it when they first came out), cuz the magnets that came with it were soooo weak.
The improvement was instant - When I put the pan on the scale, the beam rises, and passes the "mark" by 1/10th of a grain, then goes right back to the mark - it is still sensitive - the beam will clearly move with 1 granule of H-322.

I put it in with paper wedges in case it didn't work, but it worked so well that I left them there.

.

 

[BoydAllen]

Tell me about the shape of your magnets, and any dimensions that you remember. What type of material are they made from? Thanks for the info and picture.

 

[BillPa]

Tell me about the shape of your magnets, and any dimensions that you remember. What type of material are they made from? Thanks for the info and picture.

Boyd, vendors such as CMS can supply a gaggle of shapes-sizes-types of N magnets. You just have to sort through the list and select those which will fit your application.
http://www.magnet4sale.com/neodymium-magnets
BTW, they also work great to magnetize screwdriver bits!

Bill

 

[Das Capitolin]

I'm doing my best to follow along with the discussion in this thread, but one question keeps nagging me: why would you want stronger magnets to increase the dampening effect? Put another way, don't you want the scale to be sensitive, and easily pushed off balance?

 

[John Russell]

They are round and probably ~1/2" in diameter. They were not neodymium or any of the super magnets of today, because of the time frame, but they were "strong" for their time. If they got together, they took some effort to come apart.
If you pull the housing off of the M-5 that the copper blade runs in, you can measure the space and then order something the right size.

 

[John Russell]

I'm doing my best to follow along with the discussion in this thread, but one question keeps nagging me: why would you want stronger magnets to increase the dampening effect? Put another way, don't you want the scale to be sensitive, and easily pushed off balance?

Magnetic dampening does NOT effect sensitivity. The beam on my scale stops almost immediately from magnetic dampening, but the beam will move with one granule of H-322, which weighs 0.0058 of a grain.

Without dampening, the scale beam will swing up and down and up and down... forever. The faster it stops, the faster you know what the weight is - and when you are trickling, the dampening is very important, or you will constantly over shoot the weight.

 

[Homerange]

I'm doing my best to follow along with the discussion in this thread, but one question keeps nagging me: why would you want stronger magnets to increase the dampening effect? Put another way, don't you want the scale to be sensitive, and easily pushed off balance?

The copper blade on the beam that extends through the Edy fields is not directly affected by the magnetic field but the speed at which it can travel through the field is damped in a minute way, enough to speed the settling time and not have it rocking up and down over time until it settles.
The blade need be a material that in no way be affected by a magnet, pure copper is readily available and comparatively cheap.

 

[CharlieNC]

When I did a lot of surf fishing using conventional reels, some utilized rare earth magnets to dampen the over-reving of the aluminum spools. An adjustment mechanism moved the mags further-to-closer to the spool to achieve the desired level of fine-tuning. Those small mags have a tremendous level of damping capability. I tried some on my balance beam but they were too strong, resulting in too much hysterisis effect and variable settling vs zero.