James wrote:

> I put a little bowl on the scales, zeroed them, and then started
> pouring salt into the bowl until they read 10g. I thought the quantity
> looked a bit much, so I took the bowl off the scales and put it back
> on, and the scales read 14g. I poured the salt out of the bowl and put
> the bowl back on the scales, and they read 0g. I dumped the salt back
> into the bowl all in one go and the scales read 14g again! I tried the
> whole procedure several times and got the same behaviour.

Dave wrote:

> I agree with Mike here, and have seen the same effect, to a small
> extent. I have never had to remove and replace the bowl, though: Try
> tapping, or applying slight pressure to the deck with a fingertip, and
> reading after it settles back to "normal". This phenomenon is likely
> one of the details that separates the cheap scales from the dear...

There was a recent thread about this that you can read on Google:

<http://www.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=8g5710dtfmirt9hupk5s247ofktfvpvgd 1%404ax.com>
or <http://tinyurl.com/65oh4>

Someone posted with the same problem about a Salter scale and basically
everyone blasted him and said he didn't know what he was talking about.

I have a 5-lb. Pelouze scale that works fine. I wanted a 10-lb. one,
so I bought a Salter because it was very plain and simple and had a
large platform. As I used it, though, it seemed to me that when I
was adding things like non-fat milk powder, or potato flour -- things
that I use about an ounce of, and sprinkle into the bowl -- that I was
sprinkling far longer than I used to. I remembered the thread about
Salter scales and ran some experiments, and found that the original
poster was entirely correct.

If you add an ingredient slowly, the scale will not register it properly.
Weigh a bowl of oat flakes. Then, empty the bowl and slowly add that same
amount of oat flakes back in. It will not register the correct weight.
Some people have suggested that this is due to some kind of "sticking"
problem with the scale's mechanism, but this is not true. When you're
finished with the experiment and take the bowl off the scale, it returns
not to zero but to a negative value. Stickiness can't account for that.

I returned the Salter and bought another Pelouze, the 10-lb. capacity.
These scales are available in the USA at some of the large office-supply
stores, such as Staples, Office Depot, or Office Max.

Sandy