Most accurate scales mechanical or digital???

Mark A

Mark A

Mark A

Soldato
Joined
19 May 2005
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Lancashire
Hello,

I'm going to buy some bathroom scales but don't know which to go for digital or mechanical. I want them to be accurate and I'm looking to spend about £20 - £30. I would have thought that digital would be more accurate but then again clinics and doctors seem to always have mechanical scales.

Mark
 
Digital could be very good as long as they are calibrated well, if not they could well be out.

Old school scales will normally be very good as you can manually adjust them to make sure they are starting from weighing nothing.

But then again you can't read them as accurately. Digital will give a decial point and you'll at a guess be able to change measurement and the likes.
 
All the balances used in laboratories are digital. We no longer use mechanical. I know the balances we use are different, but we need them to be accurate and digital appears to offer us that accuracy.

I guess it shold be the same for bathroom scales.
 
All the digital scales ive seen look a bit cheapo, do you think a digital bathroom scale would be acurate for say £30?. Am i ok to link to Argos?.

Mark
 
My parents have some fairly standard digital bathroom scales. How accurate do you want them to be? As far as I know, the tolerances are fairly good and from what I've measured on them, I was the same when I used some real old school scales in one of the physiology labs here.
 
SCALES I was going to get these as they look like doctors scales. I'm not after super accuracy but i always weigh myself when I'm in customers houses :o , and i always get totally different readouts :confused: . I just want to know how much i really weigh and then i can keep track.
 
Digital can NEVER be as good as a mechanical. But the best digital would cost a fraction of the best mechanical. Not really a relevant piece of information for bathroom scales though. :/
 
For the amount of accuracy you care about in bathroom scales (you don't notice a few grams here and there!), either will be easily as good as you need. A digital display might be easier to read and sometimes comes with features like remembering past readings.
 
50/50 said:
Digital can NEVER be as good as a mechanical.
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I don't agree. The accuracy of the scale will be determined by the type, design and quality of the "sensor" that actually determines the weight. You could have a mechanical scale which was essentially a bit of bent metal flexing to move a needle, versus a digital scale where the load cell consists of a piece of extremely accurately machined aluminum, and the weight is determined by changes in the electrical characteristics of the aluminium under stress.

The prime determinant of scale quality is likely to be the price bracket. An analog (mechanical) scale will give you a continuous reading, whereas the digital scale can read in discrete minimum values, so arguably the analog scale is mnore "accurate". But .... that minimum value on the digital scale may be, say, 5 grams compared to the analog scale not being accurate to 100 grams.

If you can put a 0.1g trim weight on a digital scale with a 5g display interval, and it trips the weight to the next interval, it'll be FAR more accurate than a domestic mechanical bathroom scale.

None of this helps Mark A, however.

My answer would be that you can't tell scale quality from whether it's mechanical or digital, but to a point, you can tell by the price you pay. You do, by and large, get what you pay for.
 
The weightwatchers scales they sell under their banner are very good and accurate ones to try to get. Not sure of the price however.

SCM
 
how accurate to they need to be ?
i mean fair enough for meausing TINY quantities of stuuff, but a larghe human mass?
i can see a desire for them being accurate in terms of variation in weight ( letting you know when u have lost or gained weight) though
 
Dunno about accuracy but our digital scales are hopelessly inconsistant to the point that they're worthless.

You can very easily get a variance of 5-6lbs between readings even if they're taken straight after each other.

For bathroom scales I'd argue that consistancy is a lot more important than outright accuracy as well although many of you in this thread seem to be confusing accuracy with precision.
 
I have yet to find a decent set of bathroom scales. We used to weigh our TV to "calibrate" the scales, it used to vary from 8-11Kg.

Go to Boots and use their scales, they get recalibrated regularly, bathroom scales do not.
 
I suppose if we are going to get really technical, then all digital scales will have an inherent uncertainty of plus or minus half of the last decimal place it can measure too. However, There is always paralax when looking at analogue scales. To be honest, all that stuff aside, Id go for digital, simply because it wont (atleast i wouldnt have thought it will) lose accuracy over time.

Woodsy
 
I own a company that makes scales here in the UK. If you are paying £30.00 for a bathroom scale either mechanical or digital dont expect it to be particularly accurate.

Mechanical scales will wear after time, the moving parts inside are metal to metal normally. As for the digital scales they also go out of calibration as the strain guages inside the loadcells wear as well. Resetting zero does not mean that the scales will be linear throughout its weighing range.

A digital scale would be the best investment at that level. Take note that to use these for weight loss the scales are best used continuously. Ignore other scales and only use yours as the comparator, especially gym scales!

The best models to go for are Tanita or Salter Homedics.
 
Also note that 'precise' and 'accurate' are two very different, but often mistakenly interchanged terms.

eg, a digital scale could give a readout of 5 decimal places, it could therefore be deemed highly 'precise' but if it's not calibrated, then it's still not 'accurate'

The reverse might be true of an analogue scale.
 
Mark A said:
All the digital scales ive seen look a bit cheapo, do you think a digital bathroom scale would be acurate for say £30?. Am i ok to link to Argos?.

Mark
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I use a digital scale for weighing diamonds and precious metals. Needless to say it is very accurate :)

I also use a digital scale for weighing gunpowder. Also very accurate :)

I have calibration weights for both of them :D

Bathroom scales by their nature don't have to be as accurate, but digital ones will help monitor weight loss just as well as spring ones, and be less prone to wear and tear :)
 
Thanks for all the replies, my sister said id be better off just popping into Boots. I might just get the scales from Argos, i cant see them being out by a stone like some of the scales Ive tried.

Mark
 
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