Production Eq2

This is a digital scale. In technical fields things are not weighed in pounds and ounces like at the post office. They are weighed using the metric system of grams (g) and kilograms (kg). You need an accurate scale that reads in grams. The heaviest ink cartridge you will weigh tips in between 150 - 200g. So you need a scale that has an upper limit of 200g for this purpose. If you are weighing toner cartridges the heaviest one will be in the 3kg range. Buying one scale to do both is expensive. Buying two scales that work in two ranges is cheaper.

Scales that are mass produced (cheap) are made for jewelry, food stuffs, laboratories and postage. Jewelry scales are too light often stopping at 50g or so. Lab scales that are accurate to withing .01g (one hundredth of a gram) are more expensive. How much accuracy do you need? For weighing heavy stuff (toners), 1g is fine and you can find this in food and postage scales, just be sure to get one that will read out in grams. To weigh light stuff, .1g is fine too but .01g is better. By the way (or weigh) a scale that is used in a laboratory is commonly called a balance and digital lab balances can cost as much as $10,000 with accuracy to .001g. There is no need for this sort of accuracy in a cartridge shop. But a bench top digital lab scale is the best machine for doing ink cartridges.

Brand new 150 - 200g digital scales can be had for around $100. Used they can be found on eBay or Craigslist for $50 or so. If you want one with accuracy to .01g the price will double in most cases, if you need one with a digital output that can be hooked up to a computer or printer, this will add $50-100. Our advice? Shop the used market over a period of time and you will find what you need used with an occasional deal. Popular brands are Ohous and Digiweigh. You will find many Asian made scales from different sources and brand names that have been private labeled. Do not buy one that has an auto-off feature that cannot be disabled. Having to turn on the scale and wait for it to calibrate every time you want to weigh something wastes time. Most quality lab scales like the one pictured here come with that wieght that is sitting on it for calibrating it. You only have to calibrate them once or twice a year to achieve a high level of accuracy. How much does a gram weigh in terms of comparison? .01g is equal to about 3 grains fo table salt. We typically have used scales in stock.

THE FINAL WORD - When your customer shows up insisting that your product didn't last as long as an OEM but you have weighed and labeled their cartridge, your position is clear. You know how much a new cartridge weighs. You know how much thier cartridge weighed when it left your shop (equal to or more than OEM). You can weigh it now to determine if it is empty. Example: HP 56 Full = 50g, HP 56 Empty = 30g. The cartridge the customer is giving you weighs 28g. Did they get the full measure of use from your product. You bet they did. And once you explain that they used 22g of ink, which is more than the factory amount, you can explore how they have changed fonts, printed from variable web pages, the kids printed 23 pictures of the cat. You will not be granting free cartridges or refunds. This will save you time, money and win you customers because of thier perceived sense of your technical excellence.

Why do you need a scale? There are two reasons, product quality and customer perception.

You can fill 100 cartridges on Monday using an exacting method and get them exactly correct. You can do the same thing on Tuesday and have 30 that are out of specification. Do you care? Yes, overfilled (leaking) or underfilled cartridges can cause your customer to never come back to you for printer cartridges. Some people don't complain, they just find another source or buy OEM. The weight of your cartridges is critically important for your quality control. Get it right and have the best chance at turning out quality product.

Customer perception has been defined by the OEM manufacturers and word of mouth about remanufactured cartridges. The two basic ideas are that remans will wreck your printer and remans don't last as long as OEM or don't work as well. As much as people in the reman industry would like these things to not be true, they are. "WHAT?" you say?

Without going into a long discussion about low quality ink and pigment crash, cheap ink in an Epson of Canon printer that uses non-integrated cartridges can irrepairably plug up the print head requiring replacement. And since the print heads, if available, cost as much as the printer, cheap ink can ruin a good printer. There is a lot else that can do this but the ink can cause it. Also, because many reman houses have poor quality control, reman cartridges may not have the life yield of OEM products. Like it or not, these things are true.
So here you are fighting these perceptual issues before you deliver your first product. The only way you can fight it is by giving your customer information and delivering a quality product. This starts with controlling product fill levels, this is done by weight.