We’ll discuss what zeroing and taring means and when they should be used. A lot of customers get confused between the two and it’s easy to see why: they both seem to set the scale back to zero.

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The “Zero” button should be pressed when the scale is a division or two away from zero and you would like it to be perfectly on 0.00 before you start weighing. For example, you have a scale with a division of 2g and it is flashing between 0 – 4g. If you press the “Zero” key, that will hopefully zero the scale off and it will be ready for weighing.

Basically, the “Zero” button should only be pressed when no load is on the scale. On legal for trade scales, there is a limit to how much weight you can “zero off” the scale.

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The “Tare” button is pressed when you have placed something on the scale (like a box or container) and you need to disregard the weight of that item. After adding the box or container to the scale, pressing the “Tare” key will set the display to display 0.00 and then whatever you’re looking to weigh can then be added to the scale in the “Net” mode.

For example, let’s say you are using a part counting scale and you often use a plastic container when you are counting, say bolts. You place the empty plastic container on the scale, press “Tare” and then count parts. The only weight you will see on the scale is the weight of the bolts (and the number of bolts, since you are counting them).

Then when you’re finished, you can remove the plastic container from the scale. When you do this, the weight of the plastic container will still be displayed since you “tared” that off earlier. You then press the “Tare” key to remove that container weight from the scale and the display will once again be showing 0.00 and ready to weigh.