This weekend I plan on biting the bullet and buying a scale. From what I’ve gathered on this forum, all I’ll need to add to my arsenal is a scale and some pipettes. Is that correct? I’ve got plenty of glass bottles ranging from 10ml to 120ml. Is it easy to make the switch? Also, is the Gram reading for the recipes on this site always going to be accurate?
For a scale, I’m leaning towards one of these… Probably the first one because it’s cheaper and shipping is free:
Who has experience with any of these scales? The main thing I’m worried about is the damn thing shutting off in the middle of a mix which seems to be an issue after reading some things around here.
Dude that’s so fast. I’m getting sick of syringes. I can’t be as accurate as I want… plus when I use needles, whatever liquid is in it throws off the measurement a tad.
I’m thinking of pipettes because most of the flavors I have are from WL so they don’t have droppers… on the small 8ml bottles anyway.
So you’re saying you just pour your nic straight into a bottle or whatever you’re using? Is it VG based? If so I would think that would be hard to judge when you need a small amount.
The majority of people mixing by weight use 1 g/ml for flavorings - this is what ELR defaults to. If you mark a flavor as VG it will be slightly higher, “Other” will be slightly lower. If you want to be precise, you can specify your own weight for flavorings in your stash. ELR has specific weights for a bunch of flavorings (you turn this on in preferences).
Be aware that if you share a recipe, and you use specific gravities, people are probably not going to get the same results as you are, which is why leaving the weights alone for flavorings is preferable…
I can mix a complex recipe with 7-10 flavors in a couple of minutes and cleanup is non-existant I will never go back to syringes etc!
I only use pipettes for my nicotine.
I had a few flavorings in glass bottles - they need to be transferred to plastic dropper bottles for maximum performance!
Thanks for that. I went into my settings and turned on Use Manufacturer Specific Gravities. So does that mean, you or another admin scour the MSDS sheets when you can to update the weights in the backend?
Sounds like weight is a breeze once you get the hang of it.
Yes, when I stumple upon specific gravities/MSDS-sheets from manufacturers that I don’t have it for, I usually go through them and add them…
Again: If you use manufacturer-specific gravities, you’re probably gonna end up with a slightly different result than other people are, if you use a public recipe, or if other people use your public recipes… Just so you know!
Gotcha. Mainly I use public recipes. So those probably won’t be accurate unless the authors are using the manufacturer specific gravity setting also, or do their settings have nothing to do with what I see?
Just trying to clarify it a little on how it can be inaccurate. Since I mainly use public recipes I’m thinking I might just turn that manufacturer setting off.
@ffrank that is the same scale I use and some of the other members of the site use also, works very well. The only issue that you might consider is that it is battery operated and doesn’t plug in. This hasn’t been an issue for me, batteries seem to last a good long while (I haven’t needed to replace mine yet), but I recall someone once mentioned that that was an issue for them when looking for a scale.
Yes it’s VG based and I have pretty steady hands so I can do a drop at a time which weighs approx .1g
In 30ml of juice at 3mg NIC using 70mg/ml I need 1.53g of NIC so I add 1.6.
I used to drip 6mg so the small discrepancy isn’t too much of a problem.
In 100ml using the same NIC level I need around 5.14g of NIC so I add 5.2.
It works for me.
If I’m doing small 10ml samples for tasting (which I rarely do these days 30ml for samples as I can blast through it in 24-48hours) I’ll just go to the nearest 10th.
Correct. You can’t tell if they were using manufacturer specific gravities or not…
The difference can be a lot. The lowest manufacturer specific gravity I have recorded is Black Tea (TPA) and Hpno Type (TPA) at 0.814 g/ml and the highest is Grape (Cap) at 1.773 g/ml - the average is actually 1.037 g/ml so I’ve actually set it a bit low at default…
Oh ok. I certainly like the price on that one. I can’t see battery life being an issue considering the amount of juice that I make. It’s just for me and a few friends. Thanks for the info. I’ll probably end up with that one since I know you’re happy with it.
Before buying a scale check to see if your digital scale has an auto-shutoff feature. Most of them do, the last thing you want is it shuts-off as your adding an ingredient. Hitting the “tare” button should re-set the countdown timer, but not always. First choice buy a scale that has no auto-shutoff. 2nd choice buy a scale with a long auto shut-off. Avoid those scales with a 60 sec shut-off feature. I use 3oz plastic squeezable condiment bottles, they come with a nozzle, great for adding PG/VG/Nic
yup, not going back to syringes & blunt needles anytime soon, no clean up, no cross contamination using a scale, and my bathroom no longer looks like a shooting gallery
I have the Etekcity scale that you are looking at and it is a very good scale. You can change it to never auto shut off. And if you buy it from Walmart you dont have to pay shipping. They have a 500g a 2000g and one that reads to .001
Just knowing the average SG for hundreds of flavours is 1.037 g/ml gets you into the major geek hall of fame
Thanks for all the work you put into this site.
I will never go back to syringes etc! 
