Frankford Arsenal powder dispenser problem?

[Tomme boy]

Back on black Friday Midway had this for a very cheap price. And my RCBS chargemaster stopped working on the keypad. So I figured this would work for now. Maybe???

Today was the 2nd time using it. I filled the hopper with powder and turned the scale on to warm up. So I was going to load some blaster slug loads for the 12ga. So I rounded up some 1x fired Rem Premiers in green color. I use these only for slugs. That way I do not get confused as to what is in them. I sized and primed 25 hulls and the scale should be warmed up

I connected the hopper to my phone as it works better than the touch screen on the unit. It has a hard time seeing my fingers for some reason. It works perfect if the old lady trys it. So I type in 24gr and off it goes. Then it slowed down to what is in the following video.

I emptied the hopper thinking something got hung up. Nope. It is stuck doing this in the video. I tried to put powder back into it and do Powder Calculate but it just does not change speeds like it is supposed to. I unplugged it so the power drains out of the board. I will ground out the power plug on the unit before I plug it back in. That will get rid of whatever power is still being stored in the unit. Same thing you can do to reset the computer in your car. Unhook the pos and touch it to the neg post.

Too frustrated to deal with it tonight, I also spilled about a 1/4 bottle of green dot. Then the drive belt got too loose and blew off the cogs in about a 2" section on my little lathe.

 

[Reloader762]

I think these powder dispensers are just hit or miss, some work perfectly and others give constant problems or don't work at all. I read on another forum where a guy just got a replacement he's waited on for 8 months and the replacement is already broken. I've had one of these on my to get list in the past, but not anymore.

 

[dale2242]

I have the Hornady Auto Charge.
I had a malfunction one time .
I called them and they replaced it, no charge.
I really like mine.

 

[waco]

Did your Chargemaster stop working all together or does it just take multiple presses of the buttons to get it to work?

 

[Tomme boy]

The power button does not work @waco

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

Man if it was t for dad luck Tomme..

 

[Tomme boy]

I'm telling you. If something has a problem, I ALWAYS get the junk. I have always had this luck. I tried to start it again and it is not sounding happy. Going to have to send it back. Hopefully it will not take long. I was seeing some guys said it took 8 months to get a replacement. Midway has them in stock so it should be a easy swap.

The other thing that needs addressed is the touch pad not working right. That seems to be a common problem I am seeing. The blue tooth works perfect so the touch pad not seeing my fingers is not that big of a deal but it still needs fixed.

 

[jonjon]

My experience with electronic "gizmos" ranges from bad to terrible. I'll stick with my outdated Lyman balance beam.

 

[Ben]

Fast or reliable and accurate.
You pick.

 

[waco]

My RCBS Chargemaster is fast, repeatable, and accurate. It has been for like fifteen years now.
It’s a bummer your RCBS quite working Jon. Hope you can resolve your problem.

 

[Tom]

Having a masters in Ludditeism, I've never trusted any electronic scale even though I own 3 of them. I use electronic scales but always check them against a balance beam calibrated with verified check weights now and then. As far as the automatic powder scale/ measures, I've never owned one. I have faith in volumetric measures to a point, but will check my weights thrown probably about 10%, maybe more often with difficult powders to measure like unique.

 

[Brad]

A masters? Pretty sure Ian has a PhD and teaches courses.

 

[Tomme boy]

I have 2 other electronic scales. They all work perfect if you let them warm up. Most of the problems people have with them are because of their wiring in their house. If you have a un bonded neutral and don't have the two grounding rods per code then you can have issues. You need as clean of power as you can to run them. ALL scales run on DC current. Thats why the plug is large where you plug it into your house. It is a transformer turning AC into DC. If you have an o-scope you can see how bad the power is coming out of these transformers. I have not torn one apart but I bet they are using a half rectifier instead of a full wave rectifier. Full wave is a lot cleaner DC.

 

[Tomme boy]

I mainly use the auto dispensers for stick powders as I work up loads. Otherwise they just sit there. It is a lot easier to type in a charge than to adjust a manual powder thrower.

The RCBS I had was one of the very first ones. It was 20 years old or older. I don't remember when I got it but it was right when I first started reloading for rifles. So it had to be about 98 or so. It did not have some of the features the newer ones had. No auto start or memories to save. I can get it rebuilt for $160 and shipping the last time I looked.

Late last year it started to have issues with the power button so I turned it on and left it on. Then we had a power outage back before Thanksgiving and I was not able to turn it back on. So that was the reason for the Frankford scale.

 

[dale2242]

Fast or reliable and accurate.
You pick.

I disagree, Ben.
My Hornady Auto Charge is both accurate and fast.
I have checked it`s accuracy many times and many ways.
I don`t have a lab quality scales to check with but it has been spot on with all that I have used.

 

[Ben]

I should have added...
My view , not necessarily everyone else's view.

 

[Urny]

I think my old Lyman auto dispenser/scale fits the reliable and accurate part of your description Ben, definitely not fast. It sometimes seems that I could wash my face, brush teeth and comb out my beard before it finishes one charge. That is probably why it is lost out in the barn, pretty much un-mourned.

 

[Elpatoloco]

I was just eyeballing one of these before I logged in on the forum. Never had one. I do have an RCBS scale from many years ago. It drifts like a mother.

Do these Automajic powder dispensers work very well? Whats the best one to get for around 3 hunnert?

 

[Tomme boy]

After this is replaced I am going to send off my RCBS one to be rebuilt. If I could see better and my hands were a little more stable I would by pass the bubble style button and solder in a regular switch.

 

[glassparman]

I had one of the FA models and it did the same thing. Turns out they get too hot and the motor goes bad. I researched which one, replaced it but it did it again after a month.

I switched to the Lyman model and no problems at all.