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A&D FX120i - Battery Powered

Dave M.

F-Open Class shooter (284 win, 6dasher, 6.5-7PRCW)
Gold $$ Contributor
I’m sick of the inconsistency that seems to come from the 120i / autothrow / autotrickler setup. I know the drift I see is likely due to power fluctuations during the day, because when I run the system at night it seems very stable. I’ve taken static, drafts, and grounding myself out of the equation and I’m at the point where I think just running the system off of a 12V SLA rechargeable battery might work more consistent. Anyone done this? Good results? Can anyone explain how it is done (ie how to wire it to a battery)??

dave monette
 
The other things you may want to try is keep any electronics (especially phone) more than 18” away from the scale. And as I was advised on here to get a line conditioner to balance the currency from the outlet has helped.
 
BE CAREFUL !!!! unlike most little power supplies , the FX120i requires the CENTER of the plug to be NEGATIVE.. This is shown in a small diagram on the power supply.
 
The other things you may want to try is keep any electronics (especially phone) more than 18” away from the scale. And as I was advised on here to get a line conditioner to balance the currency from the outlet has helped.
I’ve done all that. No help.
 
BE CAREFUL !!!! unlike most little power supplies , the FX120i requires the CENTER of the plug to be NEGATIVE.. This is shown in a small diagram on the power supply.
I run both of my units on a motorcycle battery. Powerbrake's feedback is important and correct.
 
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How solid is the base you have the scale on? In labs, balances are typically placed on heavy granite tables or slabs. I’ve put a piece of granite offcut from a kitchen surface under mine. Also make sure it is level. When last did you lift up the lid of the scale base and cleaned any stray kernels of powder?
 
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Mine runs fine on portable power while at the range or in the field. I'm just using a portable power pack that provides regular 120V 60Hz standard outlet plugs in case I have to run anything else, and my truck has an outlet that has worked as well.

I have had places and times where I suspected intermittent trouble with the mains power and debugged by using a logging meter on the lines to catch the events. These were at work, so far no troubles at home. Most of the trouble sessions, my problems were caused on my end by equipment like air conditioners or bigger machines. Industrial mains are 3 Phase and sometimes the single phase office stuff needed some isolation from the heavy work shop demands.

At home, if you suspect your power, it may be just as easy to borrow or try a portable power supply in the same place and see if it is due to the power or the environment. Those meters and loggers are not cheap so if you verify it really was your mains power, you may want to see about borrowing or renting them. For that matter, it may just take a call to the utility company and see what they might already know about your lines.

I know you have listed lots of external stuff but does your temperature swing a lot during the drifts and maybe slow or settle at night?

Just out of curiosity, how would you describe the daytime drift in terms of grains or grams and time, versus the drift in the evening? Are we talking null drift (zero) or full scale gain (at the 100 gram level)?
 
Done it. It seems to be tied to time of day operation. Which leads me to believe it is power fluctuations
We had a customer who complained about communication issues between two devices.
Analyzing the station logs showed occurrence almost the same time every night.
It was discovered they put the communication bus cable right next to a power cable tray.
Huge motors on that power circuit would start up and cause havoc to the communications bus.
Of course, no one owned up to running the communication cable...
 
Modern homes are astonishingly dirty with respect to radio frequency interference (RFI). The reasons are many, but boil down to the proliferation of electronic devices we all use.

LED lights have many advantages. But being electrically clean is not among them. The switched-mode power supplies inherent to their design can be controlled. But, as with most things, at a cost. Most LED bulbs come out of China and their emissions are nothing to be proud of.

If someone was an amateur radio operator, I'd tell them to connect their radio to a battery, kill the mains in their house, and see how much their noise level dropped. And then go circuit by circuit to locate and identify particular troublemakers.

Why does any of this matter to a handloader? Because we increasingly are using very sensitive, very sophisticated electronic devices like the A&D FX-120i which may be affected by RFI.

If you're a ham radio operator, RFI is kinda in your face - you can't help but know that it's there. But for the vast majority of people, the only clue they have is sudden odd behaviors in a piece of electronic equipment. Like an expensive balance that suddenly begins behaving erratically.

Alas, I don't have any easy answers. Even for those with the test equipment and a commitment to finding RFI, It can be a daunting challenge to identify its source. But knowing that it's there, and that it can cause all sorts of odd behaviors, is a start.

Some stuff to beware of.... electric motors of all kinds, microwave ovens, washers and dryers, HVAC units, any kind of lighting that's not incandescent (most all lighting these days, in other words), flat-panel TV's (especially plasma), cheap wall-wart chargers (including, ironically, the OEM unit that A&D ships with their FX-120i and the replacement unit that Adam ships with his AutoTrickler), and basically anything with a switched-mode power supply.

Not all electronic stuff is dirty, of course. And not all stuff from China is bad. But a great deal of it is. And the cheaper it is, the more likely it is to pollute your house with unseen electromagnetic hash.

If you're worried about power fluctuations, something cheap like this at your bench https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JN1JDC1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
next to your A&D wall-wart will quickly tell you.

Honestly, though, behavioral anomalies that routinely happen at certain times of the day/night are rarely because of power fluctuations. They're usually because of something on a schedule or a timer.

Poor grounding - not at the loading bench itself, but rather of the entire house - can make things worse. And there are a great many homes with one or more grounding elements installed poorly or wrong.

My general advice is to control what you can control... starting with making sure that the physical environment at your loading bench is beyond reproach. It's funny how often electronic instability disappears when the bench itself gets more robust; or when the HVAC vent that no one thought about for the longest time finally gets closed.

http://www.arrl.org/files/file/RFI/Light_Bulbs.pdf

P. S. The complaints about the AutoTrickler stopping .02gr low... it does that on purpose, by design.
 
I bought a Halo bolt this year for my scale. Using my scale at the range in the camper was very frustrating at times because of the big voltage swings. It will easily last all day. It has a standard 120v outlet .

Joe
 
I have yet to try it on A&Dfx but I have used a 12V car battery with my Franford Intellidroper with great success.
Very easy to set up just make sure of the proper voltage and polarity.
 
I bought a Halo bolt this year for my scale. Using my scale at the range in the camper was very frustrating at times because of the big voltage swings. It will easily last all day. It has a standard 120v outlet .

Joe
This makes sense and is the route I will go if I decide to take my fx120 on the road. I would not at all be comfortable rigging a battery to use with my fx120. Thanks for posting.
 

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