Silk Road forums
Discussion => Drug safety => Topic started by: PsilocybinTendencies on May 19, 2012, 06:56 pm
-
Hi.
I just splurged 50 bucks on a nice, shiny new hundreths scale to measure the powders I buy.
But when I got home and weighed an american nickel, it said 4.84 grams! A nickel, according to google, is supposed to weigh 5 grams, right??
I'm plotting to try 2c-p soon, so its imperative that my scale measure precisely, but I need exactly fifty grams to calibrate, but have no check weights. Anyone else ever hit this roadblock??
-
Use 10 nickels. :)
-
Using coins as calibration isn't the best idea for fine calibration: those do wear down with use, or collect 'shit' on them increasing their weight in circulation.
I used to check calibration on scales in the lab using an eppendorf quantitative pipette and (distilled) water. Just pipet on a few increments of 200 uL and see if goes up 200 mg each time. This obviously only works if your pipette is reliable, and you need to do it quickly too - on a proper analytical balance you can see the weight of the water decrease as it evaporates.
-
a hundredths scale is NOT accurate enough to measure mg quantities, as in the dosages of 2c-p
with such a steep dose-response curve the difference of a few mg could be the difference between tripping and overdosing. a hundredths scale does not have the accuracy to measure within the small range required, as it could easily be off +/- 5 mg which is approaching an entire dose.
if you are going to measure 2c-p with that scale you need to measure a larger amount, say 100 mg which your scale can more accurately measure, then distribute the error over the ten to twenty doses rather than with each measured. then take the 100 mg and dissolve in 100 ml ethanol, or whatever concentration you decide, but that leaves you with 1 mg per 1 ml which is easier to measure accurately with just a simple oral syringe.
you can calibrate the scale using water as mentioned which has a constant density of 1 g per 1 ml, so just tare your container, add a ml of H20 and your scale should go up 1 gram
-
go buy the weight it won't be more than 10$ at a head shop...or if you can weight buy it from ebay or amazon, not more than 5-10$ for a set of them..
-
a hundredths scale is NOT accurate enough to measure mg quantities, as in the dosages of 2c-p
oh shit, thanks for that heads up.
I would karma you if I had the posts.
I grabbed the 2C-P primarily for it's price, and because I knew in the back of my mind it was a potent drug. It was sort of a leftover BTC type thing.
Now I'm realizing that I should probably read up pretty hard before I go diving into this one. If I even end up trying this substance.
Disappointing to learn that the scale can't measure that accurately, but I had other uses for the scale in mind too so that wasn't a wasted purchase.
-
I don't know about that - perhaps you should get a better scale. Something with 0.1 mg accuracy isn't that hard to obtain if its an analytical balance.
The downside is that you aren't likely to find these outside of laboratory use - keep an eye or surplus supplies!
-
2c-p shouldnt be passed up just cause it is potent. if this was the case no one would use lsd or the nbome compounds, they just need to be measured accurately. can be a very profound experience.
like i said, you can measure that 2c-p with your scale, just then use volumetric measurement to split the error over a number of doses. volumetric measurement is not difficult... measure 100 mg, dissolve in 100 ml of liquid, then ingest how ever many mg you want by drinking the correct ml 1:1. lots of info on the forum and outside resources
a scale that can measure .0001 g would be crazy expensive! you could freaking measure acid doses with that (hundreds of micrograms)... my mg scale (.001 g) still has an error of a couple mg to be safe and it was hundreds of dollars.. plus even air currents effect the accuracy. the lab scales go down to .000001 and they need boxes to isolate from air currents as well as special vibration dampening tables for accuracy beyond a mg
-
Oooooh I see what you mean by volumetric now.
Thank you for explaining that to me I will do that.
-
heck my 0.01g scale moves with just my breath.
I know some scales in my school's physics lab had a big glass box. I totally wanted to swipe it but it was like quad locked to the table lol... even the 0.1g scales were triple locked to the tables.
-
Dissolving substances so you can use less accurate balances is certainly an option.
Analytical balances that read micrograms certainly are delicate pieces of kit. They usually come with some mechanism of doors to prevent airflow from offsetting measurements, but still need calibration once in a while to remain accurate.
If you choose to go with dilution be sure that whatever you are measuring really does dissolve into the liquid you are using though. You should be extremely careful when using water as a solvent since many drugs are not that soluble in water to begin with.
-
And what do you guys think about weighing 2C-B with a basic mg scale (USA WEIGH brand, TENNESSEE model)?
Do you think that one dose would be way too light (around 15 mg) to be correctly weighed by that kind of scale, and I should stick to the dilution method?
-
If it cost $50 then it is probably crap, I've sold a few and they all suck. I just bought a $70 scale and it quit working the second time I used it, now I have to send it back to the manufacturer to get a new one that won't work either.
-
There is a lot of cheap scales out there nowadays, like the ones sold on dealextreme. You really need to verify these with a large (100g) and a small (500 mg) weight to ensure their accuracy before weighing any pharmaceuticals. The generally work pretty well, but some of them just suddenly jump off by a factor of 2 or more. If you are familiar with what a certain amount looks like you'll notice this straight away, but if you're not, you may be fooled and suffer the consequences.