When finding the right equipment for any laboratory, it is important to find the best tools possible to help make your work the best you can do. Researching what equipment will serve the needs of your laboratory can require a long investment of time, and scales are no different. These are some thoughts to remember when you are looking for the right scales to use in your lab.


Knowing which applications you will need your scales for will hasten the process. Will these scales be needed for precise measurements like those in quantitative analysis, or will they be needed to produce large amounts of product? It may be necessary to have precise yet large measurements. Each need requires their own respective kind of scales.

For any sort of quantitative analysis work, precise knowledge of reactants and precipitants is necessary to accomplish the task. Scales for this task would need the most accurate measurements possible. There are digital scales that have a precision down to 0.1mg and some down to 0.001mg. These scales can be expensive, but the expense usually depends on the total capacity, the resolution or precision of measurement, and additional features. It may be beneficial to consider scales that have an auto-calibration feature to insure the most accurate measurements consistently. Because these scales are so sensitive, you will need to find one that has a glass enclosure around the plate. Air drafts and temperature variations can dramatically affect the measurement.

When needing to produce industrial amounts of product, precision is not as much a factor as the capacity they support. These scales can range from 1kg to 6kg. Usually the precision on these high capacity scales is in the range from 0.01g to 0.1g. Auto-calibration is not as important in these kinds of scales, but it might be worth the investment as an assurance for quality.

For more general purposes, where large quantities and sharp precision are not necessary, scales that can handle 500g to 1kg with a precision of 0.001g down to 0.01g would be great while saving some money. An auto-calibration feature may serve better than not in this instance.

Some scales come with USB connectivity. This kind of additional feature is great when data needs to be computed without transcribing from paper.

Torbal makes great scales with all these features. If you would like more information about Torbal scales, prices, and availability, please contact us and we will be glad to help you.