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Chargemaster Lite vs Flourescent Lights?

Hondo64d

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
May 12, 2006
1,173
582
The Big Country
I have the scale part of a chargemaster 1500 on my bench (the dispenser failed years ago). The scale drifts significantly over relatively short periods of time. I can’t say for certain, but suspect it may be due to the fluorescent lights in my garage.

For those that have the Chargemaster Lite, is it adversely affected by fluorescent lights?

Thanks,

John
 
Warm up time is significant. Elevator in the building, refrigerator or a/c cycling, those lamps all contaminate the power source. These things drift and so do most others I would bet. A filter/conditioner in line along with warm up period allowance may work better. I use mine to drop a charge light and ad some on the mechanical scale, which by the way needs to be treated like a lady as well.
 
A line voltage regulator and-or a ferrite choke will solve the issue regardless of what's in the area.

One thing to do too is replace your shop lights or bulbs with LED. With the price of LED now there is absolutely no reason to have florescent.
 
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If "you" have a static charge it will throw the scale regardless of choke, line conditioner, or anything else you do. I have a pair of moccasins that generate static electricity like not tomorrow. I took out the keypad on one of the safes and the electronic scale that I was using to weigh bullets before I caught on. The scale had a ferrite choke on the line and was plugged in to a line conditioning UPS, neither of which protects things coming from outside the line.
 
LED lights put noise back in the line two, they have a rectifier built in which is where the noise comes from.

My Chargemaster is plugged in to a power conditioner/surge suppresser, gets warmed up for half an hour before use, is on a dead level surface, has a ferrite on the power cord, has a metal pan to avoid static electricity, and has had the cycle slowed down. It throws H4350 extremely well. I keep the powder hopper between 2/3 and 1/2 full which seems to provide the most consistent throw weights.
 
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One of the things I discovered on my chargemasters is that the clear plastic shield for the scale will build up static electricity over time, and will cause a different scale reading with the shield open versus closed the fluctuations drove me nuts until I figured out the cause. I now wipe the shields down with a dryer sheet when I turn the scales on to warm up as part of my set up procedure and have not had any more issues.

Thanks,
Ted
 
I changed landscape lights to LED a couple of years ago. Looked great no problems. We have a driveway gate opener that started having problems. Called the gate people and it worked, then occassionally it would not. Called another gate company they checked it and all was ok, but once again problems would happen. I read up and ordered an extended recieving unit and installed it. I could stand several houses away and open the gate without any issues. A few days later we come home at night and the gate would not open. Standing at the gate frustrated it finally came to me, the problems only happened at night when the landscape lights were on. I walked over and turned them off and bingo the gate would work. Turned the lights back on, the gate would not work. WTF! Every service person including myself would check or work on the gate during the day when the landscape lights were not on, but at night is when we had problems. I changed out the lights that were close to the gate operator to normal traditional type and no more problems. Called the landscape light distributor and they had just started getting complaints about the same issues with gates and garage doors. Heads up the LED lights may interfere.