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Re: Beer Level

Are you talking about commercial kegs?

Yes.

But after thinking about it, I do not see that the error introduced by different empty weights for commercial kegs is all that big a deal. At most you will be off a 1/2 gallon or so, and that can be easily dealt with. If you run out earlier than you thought, keep a six pack or two of bottled beer in the refrigerator. If you run out later than you thought, decant the excess beer into a pitcher before you swap out the old keg. The most you will be dealing with is around 1/2 gallon.

How about a plywood platform for the keg to sit on which is supported by 3 springs on corners. The reason for 3 springs is the same for a

3-legged stool. You could measure the compression of the platform and usethat to determine the amount in the keg.

Since the 3 springs support the entire weight, you would buy the springs with a compression rate suitable for the geometry of your setup. If you have 12" of clearance, then the rate of each spring would be something like 60 lb per 12" of travel (for a total of 180 lb). That way the you would have around 1" resolution to measure the empty keg (15 lb).

This may be easier to implement than appears at first. The plywood pieces are easy enough, and you should be able to get just about any kind of spring you need from an industrial supplier, even if you have to order it by mail. Use conduit clamps to hold the spring in place and mount a wooden ruler vertically on the base to measure the separation.

Put something on the top of the platform to force the keg to be centered. You can locate that center spot empirically with an empty keg - just move the keg around until the compression at each spring is the same. Or better yet, make the platform exactly the same size as the diameter of the keg, so you can center the keg easily. That will, however, require the springs to be perfect in order to achieve a level platform.

Comments, please.

Reply to
Bob
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Still don't understand why you would go to all that trouble? Just use the fish scale.

Mark R

Reply to
Mark R

With a half empty keg weighing 60 lb how am I going to use a fish scale in situ?

Reply to
Bob

The keg weighs 150 lb which makes using a hand-held scale inside a refrigerator compartment impossible.

Reply to
Bob

If your trying to weigh a full keg, agreed. If you just want to determine the last gallon or two, the whole thing shouldn't weigh much more than

30lbs. Being a commercial keg doesn't make it an easy problem to solve. Good luck

Mark R

Reply to
Mark R

I disagree. A _real_ man should have no trouble with a full 1/2 barrel keg. Using one arm.

Reply to
The Artist Formerly Known as K

I disagree. A *real* _real_ man would get his woman to do it for him.

Reply to
Joel

I disagree. A **real** man would get *one* of his women to do it for him. With one arm.

Reply to
The Artist Formerly Known as K

But then she will take over the keg and drink it all herself.

If you object, she will hang you on the fish scale.

Reply to
Bob

Here is a web site that has just about every kind of scale you could want.

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The thin scales with remote readout look interesting, but they are pricey.

Reply to
Bob

Anything suitable for weighing humans should be good for kegs. eBay is pretty good for this kind of thing.

On a slightly different topic, there are 30lb digital postal scales going cheaply on eBay(I got one for 22$ total, _including_ shipping).

These are great for weighing grain and hops. There's a major glut of these right now. eBay seems to have an auction completing on these very

5 minutes. They come with a lifetime warrantee and have a tare function, which is nice to zero out grain bucket or hop bag weight.
Reply to
The Artist Formerly Known as K

There is one problem, namely the temperature specification. The scales I saw had a 40F cutoff. I suppose you could run them down to 38F and be safe, but it is an issue that should be clarified before sinking money into it.

I have bought on eBay and in general I do not have a problem. However, I remind you that items which sell cheaper than retail do so for a reason.

One reason is repackaging. That's where a manufacturer gets product returns, checks to see if the item works and if it does he repackages it. But he cannot sell it on the retail market (if he is scrupulous or is concerned that the retailer will sanction him), so he sells them to an outlet. eBay is such an outlet.

I know this because I know people who sell on eBay and this is what they do. They find items that manufacturers want to unload and they bid on the lot. If they are successful, they have a large quantity to unload on unsuspecting buyers.

Of course there is another reason for cheaper than retail - product defect. The defect may be a simple cosmetic flaw or it could be a problem that renders the item unusable now or later. The Dollar Stores are filled with products that are minimally defective, and WalMart has a habit of offering brand-name products (e.g., GE and Rival) for deep discounts because of some (un-named) defect that does not cripple the item, just adds a nuisance.

Electronics are especially bad because there is likely some kind of defect that you cannot easily detect. In a postal scale it could be the calibration is off in certain weight regions. You will likely never know it is happening.

The USPS offers their official postal scale for a very low price. If I were to get an electronic scale it would be that one. I do not trust eBay for electronic items.

Reply to
Bob

[snip]

Umm -- thanx for the reminder, but I've been at this for a while.

The scales in question are selling cheaply because they've been replaced by another model, and the manufacturer (and retailers) do indeed have overstock. This is reflected by the prices at retailers other than those on eBay. This particular model appears to be built by a single manufacturer and sold under a number of names. In any case, overstock is not in and of itself a bad thing. A bit of research can usually turn up the reason WHY a product is overstocked and what the price differences are between eBat and non-eBay retailers.

The other reason that these scales (and most digital postal scales in general)are cheap is that reasonably accurate electronic load cells are themselves now available quite cheaply; the same, btw, is true of other related technologies, in particular solid state accelerometers, which have also dropped in price dramatically over the last few years.

It is quite possible to buy electronics on eBay (and it's one of the best ways to go for used test equipment, assuming you know what you're doing), but it does take a bit of dilligence to differentiate between a bargain, utter crap, or utter crap at a bargain price.

I have purchased a set of these scales and checked accuracy against a lab balance -- and it is indeed within spec; I wouldn't have recommended them otherwise. They can be had, by the way, from other retailers. They generally run around $25 plus the cost of shipping (and usually handling). Bid carefully and you should be able to get them on eBay for

22-23, including shipping.
Reply to
The Artist Formerly Known as K

I do not want to beat this dead horse too much more, but I am skeptical about why they are obsolete. Electronics becomes obsolete for many reasons, one of which is a bug in the firmware or bad hardware design.

If you have personally checked the scale out against a lab scale, then it sounds like a good deal. I bet the folks on the bread making forums would like to know. They pay hundreds for scales that you should be able to get for $20.

Now, if they would just come out with a load cell so we could make a keg scale. The last person to comment about load cells was that they are prohibitively expensive, probably because the ones he thinking about are not mass produced because the weight range is too high.

Maybe if you put 20 of your cheap ones on a platform ...

Reply to
Bob

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