Dispensing Powder Directly from Measure to Pan?

[chkunz]

Dropping the powder charge from the measure directly to the pan on digital scales or the pan on the beam balance would add some convenience to the loading process. There was a link to a video in another thread on this forum showing the invention of a prototype that does this function. A key element is slowing the movement of the powder so it does not spill as it is moved into the pan by gravity, it appeared to be slowed by some very small steps and worked well. Has anyone seen something that does this for sale or has any one constructed something like this for their own use?

 

[JRS]

An empty 35MM film canister works great

 

[jimcasey01]

An empty 35MM film canister works great

As does the little measuring cups/dipper in Gatorade powder mix. Almost the same as a film can, but with a small handle. Zero your scales to the weight of the dipper, or pour into a pan on the scales.

 

[JRS]

An empty 35MM film canister works great

As does the little measuring cups/dipper in Gatorade powder mix. Almost the same as a film can, but with a small handle. Zero your scales to the weight of the dipper, or pour into a pan on the scales.

Thanks for the tip Jim I guess i'll retire my film canisters ;D

 

[jimcasey01]

An empty 35MM film canister works great

As does the little measuring cups/dipper in Gatorade powder mix. Almost the same as a film can, but with a small handle. Zero your scales to the weight of the dipper, or pour into a pan on the scales.

Thanks for the tip Jim I guess i'll retire my film canisters ;D

I did advertising photography and some photojournalism many years ago, hence I had many thousands of empty film canisters. Somewhere along the way I have disposed of them, so I have to make do with whatever is available now. :'( Plus a quart of Gatorade is nice to have at the range. ;D

 

[JRS]

An empty 35MM film canister works great

As does the little measuring cups/dipper in Gatorade powder mix. Almost the same as a film can, but with a small handle. Zero your scales to the weight of the dipper, or pour into a pan on the scales.

Thanks for the tip Jim I guess i'll retire my film canisters ;D

I did advertising photography and some photojournalism many years ago, hence I had many thousands of empty film canisters. Somewhere along the way I have disposed of them, so I have to make do with whatever is available now. :'( Plus a quart of Gatorade is nice to have at the range. ;D

I still have quite a few. Haven't given up on B&W film with my EOS-1 V 8)

 

[BoydAllen]

I was the one that put up the Youtube clip that the OP referred to. The problem is to dump the powder directly into the scale pan, while it is on the scale, without having granules bounce out of the pan. As he said, reduction in velocity is one way, and probably the best, to do this. I am sure that various schemes are possible to accomplish this, the device in the video was the cleverest that I had seen (and his measure stand the most massive and expensive imaginable).

Some time back, I accomplished the same thing with a different method, I clamped a funnel to a metal drop tube with one of those spring clamps that are use for stacks of paper, so that it discharged at an angle into my balance scales pan. Noting the section of the pan where the powder impacted, I applied a piece of foam tape of the type that is used to bandage cuts (flesh colored) that I had around the house, this to act as padding. When the powder hit the tape, it did not bounce out. The only problem that I had was the adhesive at the edges of the tape causing powder to be held in the pan when I dumped it. I think that I rubbed the pan and tape with some fine powder that I had, possibly HBN (I forget) to solve this problem. I dealt with the additional weight by noting where I had to set the previously balanced scale to rezeroing it, and adding that amount to my desired weight. I did all of this with the scale positioned at a right angle to the edge of the desk, and a webcam focused on the beam pointer, with the image on my computer's screen behind the whole setup, which allowed me freedom to position the scale in any position that I wanted and be free of parallax problems as well as to be able to better see small differences in beam position. With all of this set up, I positioned my RCBS trickler so that it would dribble powder into the scale pan.

As I may have mentioned, with a little practice I was able to charge a case and return the pan to the scale in about 16 or so seconds, with an accuracy of +- .05 gr. or slightly better, given that I have some experience with the trickler.

Since then I have acquired one of the powered tricklers with an electric eye and although I have not used it in a similar setup, I might be able to shave a few seconds off of my round loading time by starting it, and then seating a bullet while it finishes the charge on its own, thus giving me a crude (and much less expensive) rendition of what the much more finely wrought and engineered Prometheus measure.

I probably should mention that I have tuned up all of my balance scales.

 

[expiper]

OP..you should try dropping the powder charge directly into the ctg. case,,,Roger

 

[BoydAllen]

The whole point is that some powders (like 4350)are not likely to be able to be thrown with sufficient uniformity (for me), and some applications require more precision even with powders that throw well. I throw all of the powders that I can. Mine was just an experiment to see what could be done.

 

[amlevin]

I'm really low-tech. I picked up one of RCBS's Powder Dispenser Stands that included the trickler built in.

The "elephant trunk" that deliverd the powder to the scale allowed the powder to gain enough speed it would just slosh right through the pan.


I merely cut off a 2" piece of an aluminum pop can, cleaned it out well, and cut a notch on one side that allowed the "snout" to sit down into the new "Pan".

Looks cheap (and it is) but it works fantastic. Have been looking around for a small stainless steel "beaker" to make it look a little more professional but so far the truncated pop can has worked just fine.

 

[BoydAllen]

Electronic scale or balance?

 

[BillPa]

I asked one of our mechanical engineers at work one day why he always makes things technically intriguing rather than practically simple? ;D

With that thought in mind I use a Lyman funnel pan. I'll hold it against the measure drop tube, dump the charge, lower it allow the tube to empty, move it to the scale(beam or digital) then dump the powder in the case and repeat the process as required.

I glued a steel flat washer on the bottom then filed it to adjust it's weight to 134.12gns the same weight of the beam scale pan to use it on both scales, beam and digital.

Bill

 

[chkunz]

Thanks to all for your replies. A couple of folks did not understand my question and that was my fault for not being clear and providing enough detail. I did appreciate your response and you gave me some other ideas. Boyd Allen understood and gave a lot of thoughtful detail and I must admire his ability to improvise. I think the short answer is that there is no simple solution to what I would like to do, dump the powder directly from the measure into the pan on the scale without the step of manually taking the pan of the scale and charging it from the measure and then placing it back on the scale before manually trickling it to the exact weight. This is a minor step I would like to eliminate but I am constantly trying to improve and simplify the loading process without compromising quality. It would only save a few seconds per round but for a person who loads several thousand rounds per year the seconds add up. I will continue to think about this but it will probably take someone more resourceful than I to come up with a good solution.

 

[memilanuk]

T-REX,

Not sure if my memory serves me correctly on this one, but I seem to recall someone years ago setting up something for the very same purpose. I think their solution involved getting a long plastic strip, heating it and putting a few twists in (think like helical fluting on a barrel) and then trimmed it to fit up inside a drop tube on their powder measure. I'm not sure how well it actually works - seems like the fit would have to be pretty spot-on to avoid having kernels of powder getting trapped along the way - but it might be a solution you could try at home.

HTH,

Monte

 

[chkunz]

OK, Rube Goldberg lives. I took a piece of Tygon tubing and taped one end to the outlet of the powder measure. The tubing is naturally curved so that put the other end of the tubing almost horizontal so I put tape over that end of the tubing and cut a slot in the bottom of that end for the powder to fall out of and into the pan on the scale. This kills the horizontal velocity so the powder just falls vertically out the bottom of the tubing and stays in the pan. Then I can use the powder trickler to bring the charge up to the desired weight like I normally do. Thanks to all for helping me with this trivial solution. It does not take much to make some folks happy.

 

[waltk]

Where does one acquire Tygon tubing without having to buy a lot of it?
Is this just standard clear tubing that can be purchased at a big box store like Home Depot or Lowe's?
Or is this a certain brand name tubing with the certain properties?
What size are you using? ID, OD, wall thickness? I am very interested in this setup. I might like to give
it a try also.
Regards, Walt

 

[chkunz]

I think I had a flash back for my rocket testing days. It is not Tygon brand tubing, is just the plastic tubing that I bought at Home Depot and that is all that I need for this project. It is about 1/2 inch internal diameter but that is not critical at this point. I have taken a small box and run the tubing thru it so the box anchors the tube and its routing and allows the adjustment of the positioning of the components. I have added a funnel to the powder measure end of the tube so the tube is no longer taped to the measure outlet and has some ability to be moved around for adjustment. Boyd Allen has provided some helpful critique so I will press on with inventing tomorrow. Time for bourbon and coke and a break from inventing which is very stressful.

 

[waltk]

Thank you very much for the info. Pretty interesting. Some good ideas.
Might give it a go.
Regards, Walt

 

[minnesotamulisha]

I put the bottom of the scale pan so that it is touching the drop tube on the powder dispenser and throw the lever after it's in place. Then I slowly move the pan towards the scale and trickle until I meet my charge. This way I can control how fast the powder drops into the pan and doesn't roll over the edges.

 

[ReedG]

I do most of my loading by dropping powder direct to powder pan. My measures, a Harrell's and a Redding, both have 6" drop tubes. I just hold the powder pan directly against the bottom of the drop tube and as the powder builds up in the tube I move the pan down and then put it on the scale. Takes longer to describe than to do, but works fine.