Groete
A while ago the friend of mine phoned me regarding his RCBS Chargemaster combo scale. Up to then I have not taken much notice of my own scale, but he informed me that his scale was charging extremely slow. I timed mine and found that mine was running a lot faster then his. This set me on a journey to find out why there was a difference. The outcome however was that his scale was defective, but it gave us insightful information about the working of these scales.
After doing some research on the internet I was able to determine that these little green scales are fully re-programmable. I sent an e-mail to RCBS on which I received no reply, and eventually telephoned them. They were very helpful and gave me their instructions on how to change the programming on this scale.
This has made a tremendous difference in my reloading experience with this scale. The scale is fully adjustable and there are many settings and that you can change. To enter the program mode press EDIT MEM and ENTER at the same time. After making an adjustment press ENTER to go to the next option. After the last setting the scale will reset and countdown. If you passed a setting you have to start from the beginning, there is no back button.
This is the list of settings that you can make to your scale, for some of the functions I do not have detailed instructions as to what they do, and would recommend that you do not change them:
HSB_A1 (15.68) Grains under target weight to go from full to high speed for low weight
HSB_B1 (3.42) Grains under target weight to go from high to slow speed low weight
BSP_C1 (1.08) Grains under target weight to go from slow to final trickle speed low weight
MSP_A2 (39.20) Grains under target weight to go from full to high speed for medium weight
MSP_B2 (8.55) Grains under target weight to go from high to slow speed medium weight
MSP_C2 (2.25) Grains under target weight to go from slow to final trickle speed medium weight
SSP_A3 (196.00) Grains under target weight to go from full to high speed for heavy weight
SSP_B3 (42.75) Grains under target weight to go from high to slow speed heavy weight
SSP_C3 (11.32) Grains under target weight to go from slow to final trickle speed heavy weight
SEL (065)
F_A (050) Grains for a Heavy Charge
M_A (035) Grains for a Medium charge
S_A (006) Grains for a slow charge
W_F (200) Rotation for Full speed (200 Means 20gr)
W_M (100) Rotation for Medium speed (100 Means 10gr)
W_S (036) Rotation for slowest speed (036 means 3.6gr)
S_F (012) Scale sensitivity timeout time in m/s fast speed
S_M (024) Scale sensitivity timeout time in m/s medium speed
S_S (128) Scale sensitivity timeout time in m/s slow speed.
FR1 (040) ?
FS1 (016) ?
FR2 (080) ?
SR1 (032) ?
SS1 (008) ?
SR2 (040) ?
DEC (000) ?
AT (000) ?
“S_” parameters control the dwell time for measurements at the different speeds and a setting of “64” corresponds to 2 seconds (each unit being 1/32 second). When you increase these values you will note a longer lag time in detecting the scale reading and adjusting the trickle speed. I assume that this will allow the scale measurement a longer time to settle when running at the slower speeds.
A large setting for “S_F” parameters will cause overcharges.
I have to advise you to only make changes to your scale if you are confident to do so, and remember that there is not a “return to default” setting in the scale. If all else fails return your scale to the default settings listed above in brackets.
I am now able to throw 56 grains of S365 in less than 18 seconds (average of 15 charges), and with very few overthrows.
Another problem I experienced with the scale was that there were continued overthrows. The RCBS employee advised me to take a McDonnell's straw (because it is thicker than a normal straw), cut off about a half inch piece and put it into the tube where the powder exits. This caused the last part of an extruded powder to clutter less, and reduced the amount of overthrows dramatically.
Also something that helped. I lifted the pan of the scale closer to the tube. This decreased the time of travel since the powder exit’s the tube and falls into the pan. The scale can only measure material in the pan. This also seemed to decrease overthrows on the trickle speed. To do this I used a piece of neoprene self-adhesive strip on the bottom of the pan.
I hope you have more joy a with your scale now.
If you have any other suggestions or recommendations on how to improve the functionality of this scale please reply on this topic
Post edited by: Jaco Brink, at: 2007/11/07 15:27
