Reddit reviews AC Pro Digital Pocket Weight Scale 200g x 0.01g, Home or Office Scale (Black), ACP-200

Fuck. Family going nuts. Need to finish 2nd half. Here's a start:

Preamble
I've been working on trying to compartmentalize my homebrewing process so that I can do it in bits and pieces as time allows. I've been thinking about this for a while. Here is the completely stripped down process. Minimal investment, minimal time. All links are what I easily found. I have not spent time trying to find the "best deal." Some will complain some of this equipment isn't good/nice enough. It is. Shipping is not included in any of the pricing. YMMV.

Parameters
For this thought experiment, we will be making 100ml (10x 10ml vials) of Test E @ 250mg/ml, with 2% BA and 20% BB. This will require 25g of powder, 2ml of BA, 20ml of BB, and approximately 55ml of carrier oil.

Step one: Brew
Equipment:
Beaker Set $6.49 (Amazon)
Borosilicate Glass Stir Rod $1.75 (Amazon)
Small Scale $15.69 (Amazon)
Stove/Cooktop $0.00 (Kitchen)

Consumables:
10ml syringe $12.11 / 5 pack, also has syringe filters (Amazon)
2ml Benzyl Alcohol $4.21 for 50ml (MedlabSupply)
20ml Benzyl Benzoate $5.53 for 50ml (MedlabSupply)
~55ml Cottonseed oil $6.38 for 100ml (MedlabSupply)
3ml syringe you should already have on hand from pinning

Process:
Take your 250ml beaker, place it on the scale. Add 25g of powder. Use 3ml syringe to add 2ml of BA to beaker. Use 10ml syringe twice to add 20ml of BB to beaker. Pour CSO until it fills up to 100ml line.

Place beaker on stovetop, turn heat to low. Stir with glass rod. Keep stirring. Keep stirring. Keep doing this until your mix is completely clear (all powder dissolved in).

Homebrew Materials:

Vacuum Pump Oil

Vacuum Tubing

1/4" Barb x 1/4" NPT Male Hose Fitting

1/4" Male x 1/4" Female NPT Extension Hose

Vacuum Pump

Filters

Spatulas

Magnetic Stir Bar

Digital Hotplate with Magnetic Stirrer

Nitrile Gloves (Better than Latex)

Empty Capsules (Buy Separated unless you hate your life)

Capsule Machine (If you value your sanity, buy more than a 100... I hated my life doing this)

Mohr Pipets

Pipette 10ml

Mortar and Pestle (If you're doing orals, get this... Otherwise, you're playing Russian Roulette with your doses and liver)

Funnel (For pouring into small places)

Alconox (For clean your shit)

Temperature Gun (How hot is my shit?)

Graduated Cylinder (If you measure with beakers, you're a fucking idiot... And you should consider Volumetric Flasks)

Beaker Set

1 Liter Beaker (Because brewing en'masse is better)

Scale (I have a 2kg one, too)

Calibration Weight Set

Calibration Weight 100g (Because you need two for the scale linked)

Vacuum Regulator (Unless you want to filter 9001 times due to broken shit)

Oil (Any USP grade, filtered or unfitlered)

BB

BA

Butyl Stoppers

Flip Top Seals

Crimper

Vials (Unsealed)

Autoclave (Cheaper than an oven, why are you using an oven?!)

Weight Boats (Buy a million of these. They're cheap and useful)

Did I miss something? Probably. Yes.

I agree, I've never seen a decent package. Op, cancel if you can. Seriously, you don't need a "spoon spatula" or "Nicosorb Cartridge Filler", nor do you want their 30ml of 36mg Nic or 60ml PG/VG.

____

Here is an alternative setup to the one /u/IllustratedMann posted that mixes by weight (HUGE improvement over volume). His suggestion is great btw and very similar to what I started with. The following however is what I recently recommended to my brother.

• 950ml VG - $13
  
• 950ml PG - $13
  
• 120ml 60mg Nic (PG) -$23
  
• Scale - $15
  
• 50x 10ml Bottles - $7
  
• 12x 10ml Flavorings - $25
  
• Latex Gloves - $2 (get from Walmart)
  
• 3 Large Squeeze bottles - $2 (get from Walmart travel section or Hobby Store painting section)
  
  Total: $100 (includes shipping | all are US, community-darling vendors)
  
  That will get you a true hobby-level setup and enough nic to make ~600ml of 12mg juice with plenty of supplies to spare.
  
  ___
  
  Also guys, the flavors you start with are less important than how you use them. There are several schools of thought, but I highly recommend ordering the flavorings for at least 2 highly rated user recipes that you find here (especially clone recipes), and play towards tweaking them to your preference. That way you start with amazing juice on day one, and your project juices are fun, not desperate.
  
  The community is rapidly maturing and you no longer have to reinvent the wheel. You absolutely can, but get some ADV in the cupboard before you take that on. This comment talks a bit more about that.
  
  Here is another hotbed of crowd-sourced info. Make an account and explore.
  
  

TL:DR- Save money by fapping, looking at /r/DIY_eJuice for recipes, buying shit, playing chemist, and fapping some more while then vaping your creation. $66 for ~400ml, only to get cheaper overtime.

As a broke college student, I jumped in to save money. Skip using syringes to measure volume; just mix by weight. I use Ecigexpress for a good portion of my purchases. Prices will be based off of them.

1. Fap. A lot. Or give handjobs if that's your thing. I promise this important. If you're lame awesome, you can also buy a shake weight.
   
   
2. Look for recipes you like on the /r/DIY_Ejuice subreddit. You can either look at the top posts, or search for juices you like. There might be a clone, or a clone attempt.
   
   
3. Buy your supplies. The startup can be a little expensive, but IMHO is worth it in the long run.
   
   

• Flavorings- Start with the smaller 10ml sizes unless you know you'll use them a ton (menthol, koolada, sweetener, etc). Those might run you about.... $3-$5 depending. Say you start with ten flavors (you might not have to, but up to you), then you're at $30-$50 for flavoring.
  
• VG/PG- Unless you want max VG, I'd recommend buying both separately. 250MLish of each each should be enough for you to decide if DiY is your calling. 250 ml of PG and 250ml of VG will run you $5.29 a piece, so round up and call it $11 for your PG/VG base.
  
• Nicotine- Fuck whatever you've heard. Buy 36 mg/ml in a 50/50 PG/VG blend. Higher strength might lead to more flavor, but IMHO not worth the risk at all. Ive been using 36 mg/ml for seven months, and I have no complaints, and I haven't died if when I spill the nicotine. Win win. Also, you want 50/50 as a max thickness to avoid any "hotspots" (uneven strength of the nicotine) after shaking. There's a debate on where to buy your nic from, but for my uses ECX wins with price. Haven't had anything of super high quality, but I've had zero complaints with the four or five batches I've ordered from them. 30ml of 50/50 36 mg/ml strength nic will run $5.
  
• Gram scale- for mixing by weight. Make sure it's accurate down to the 0.00 grams range. The other thing to look at is the max capacity. The smaller ones will have a lower capacity, thus gigantic batches won't be able to be made, but if you're going for 30-60ml, this has never been an issue for my 200g scale. Found it on Amazon for $14 Though I'd check /r/DIY_eJuice for their list of recommended scales should you be able to find a better one.
  
• Bottles- You can reuse the ones you have currently after a good wash, or buy your own. I wouldn't recommend buying these 30ml cobalt dropper bottles due to the fact that they leak like a bitch, never really close securely, and the fact that they doubled in price since I bought them.If you need new bottles, I'm sure you could find a dozen or so bottles for $6ish or so. EDIT- Found these. 30ml glass bottles- $0.70/ each. 30ml standard plastic dripping bottle- $0.39/each.
  ** Glass Pros- Holds less flavor after a wash, also some say they don't leech the chemicals plastics to, and mess up your flavor. Cons- More expensive, marginally not as convenient as plastic bottles for dripping/refilling a tank. Plastic: Somewhat easier to seal, and cheaper than glass. Cons- Potential leeching of chemicals that may mess up your juice after extended storage. I've personally never experienced anything noticeable, but to each their own.
  
• Total of $66+ (plus $25 for your very own Shakeweight) or so, but YMMV. For ~400 ml that you can fine tune to your liking. This cost will decrease if you continue, as you probably won't have to buy another scale or more bottles for a while unless you really want to.
  
  

4. Mix! Here's my go to mixing calculator. Not as 'advanced' as some of the other ones, but fuck it. It's simple, but provides a great layout to grow into. Go make yourself an account while you're waiting for your ingredients, and play around with it a bit. Hell, here's a fan friend/roomate favorite of mine. If you like root beer, I guarantee you'll like this. Three ingredients, and super simple. You can edit to add your preferred nicotine strength and/or final PG/VG ratio. EDIT: Banana nut bread that's also a friend favorite. Even easier.
   
   

• Mixing process- After finding a recipe you want to make, and getting your supplies in, shake the fuck out of all your ingredients, especially your nicotine. If the recipe isn't already on the calculator, put everything in yourself (flavor and percent), making sure to identify your nic strength, the PG/VG ratio of your nic, and the desired PG/VG ratio of your juice.
  
• Put your bottle on your scale, zero it out.
  
• Shake each flavor again. A lot. Put all that fapping to good use.
  
• Add each flavor to the corresponding weight (in grams) according to the calculator. MAKE SURE TO SHAKE EACH FLAVOR BEFORE ADDING IT TO THE BOTTLE I start with the nic, then flavors, then VG/PG. I don't really thing there's a right way, but that's been my system.
  
  Close your bottle.
  
  Shake the fuck out of it again. See how important masturbation is to training for this?
  
  
• The mixing process really only takes 5-10 minutes, it's not that bad once you get it down. Promise.
  
  

5. Vape/steep!- Whew! That was a bit of effort! But if you find this interesting for one reason another, I will confirm it can be VERY rewarding. If it sounds like too much work for little yield, then so be it. I'd still recommend giving it a shot.
   
   
6. Enjoy! Feel free to message me or SEARCH /r/DIY_eJuice if you have any questions. Always would love to help someone else.
   
   
   
   Edit: Words.
   
   EDIT 2: Extra bottle info and another easy recipe from me.

http://www.amazon.com/American-Weigh-Scales-ACP-200-Digital/dp/B003STEIYY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1395659878&sr=8-4&keywords=american+scale+200g

The Lee safety scale is a pain.

I use this with my Lee single stage press. 0.2 Grain increments, but that's good enough for me:

http://amzn.com/B003STEIYY

If you ever want to take a variable out of the equation, using weight instead of volume for your output is a great tool since crema volume can vary significantly. This scale is $14 and has been amazing for me for months and months of daily use. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003STEIYY/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I bought dumb... I needed a millegram scale that would measure down to the thousandth of a mg for meds, so the first one I got was the AWS gemini-20 and that's been the scale I use 99.9% of the time. Problem is, it only has a 20g capacity, so trades/donations were ridiculously complicated. However, it's an extremely accurate scale, comes with calibration weights and the case has a magnetic flap and protects the scale very well. It's a complete system.

Then, I got the AWS ACP-200 and that better for trades and donations, and I thought it would adequate. But no... Most of what I buy is 250g minimum (I told you I bought stupid). This one, however, requires that you buy a separate calibration weight. And they're not cheap.

Which brings me to the AWS-600-BLK with a capacity of 600g. Of course, I also buy kilos, but I haven't addressed that one yet :-) This one requires a calibration weight also, which really offsets the relatively inexpensive buy-in for the scale.

If I was smart, I would have purchased the 20g and a 1000g version and been done with it. One suggestion I would make is to NOT buy the calibration weights that they list as accessories for the scales and go with this guy instead. It's a 1000g calibration weight set that will give you just about any weight imaginable for only $18.

Good advice. I have the AWS 100 and a buddy has the 200 model. I think the 200 is a little easier to work with due to it allowing a bit more weight before it can't handle it. We use it for hops measurement too....not that you have to be too precise with that.
http://www.amazon.com/American-Weigh-Scales-ACP-200-Digital/dp/B003STEIYY

0.00 pocket scale

0.000 mg scale

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003STEIYY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have both of those linked below, no problems with either of them. The LB-501 gets used the most and I know a lot of people on this sub use it as well. I could see a triple beam with a 0.01g resolution being a little more work and taking longer. Not to mention more expensive.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003STEIYY/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_YWe.tb19VFDM3

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DS-19-500-x-0-01g-Digital-Pocket-Jewelry-Scale-with-Calibration-Weights-/220974943011?ssPageName=ADME:L:OU:US:1120