Frankford Arsenal has been releasing a LOT of great products that have captured quite a bit of attention lately! Recently I posted a story covering the new Frankford Arsenal M-Press, and in this post I’ll cover another new product Frankford Arsenal product that’s really innovative. This new product takes powder dispensing to a new level- it’s called the Frankford Arsenal Intellidropper!

What’s In the Box

The Frankford Arsenal Intellidropper includes everything you’ll need to start dispensing precision powder loads:

• Powder dispenser unit with 1 lb reservoir and cap
• Power adapter (with European adapter) and cord
• Two 50 gram calibration weights
• Pan
• Powder cleaning brush
• Instructions

Setup

Settting up the Intellidropper is easy. Here’s what you need to do in order to get up and going:

1. Remove the Intellidropper from the packaging
2. Press the reservoir tube into the base
3. Install the cap on the resrvoir
4. Place the calibration weights into their respective holders
5. Place the powder brush into its holder
6. Place the pan on the platen, and the cover over the pan
7. Plug the Intellidropper into AC power using supplied adapter
8. Level the Intellidropper using the leveling feet
9. Let the Intellidropper warm up for 1/2 hour or longer
10. Calibrate the Intellidropper

Above: calibrating the Intellidropper

Calibrating the Intellidropper is EASY, here’s what you do: (make sure all setup steps listed above have been completed)

1. Zero the scale with no pan on platen
2. Press calibration button, wait for “Stable” indication
3. Press calibration button, put 50 gram weight on platen when told to do so wait for “Stable” indication
4. Press calibration button, put 100 gram weight on platen when told to do so wait for “Stable” indication
5. Press calibration button, if “PASS” is displayed, you are done, else start back at step 1

The Intellidropper is now ready to use!

Dispensing Powder Charges

Dispensing powder with the Intellidropper is very easy and straightforward. Before working with a particular powder, you’ll want to:

1. Check to make sure the powder drain is closed!
2. Fill the reservoir with powder
3. Place the pan on the platen and zero the scale
4. Press the “Powder Cal” button to perform a calibration
5. Wait for the powder calibration to finish
6. Dump the powder from the pan back into the reservoir

Once you have completed these steps, you simply enter the charge weight desired and press the “Go” button. Because of Frankford Arsenal’s proprietary algorithm (which is run during the powder calibration) this scale can dispense a powder charge very fast! During my testing I didn’t encounter any overcharges either which is notable.

The two powders I tested were Vihtavuori  N140 (a rifle powder) and Vihtavuori N340 (a pistol powder).

The charges were as follows:

• Vihtavuori  N140: 25.5 grains (a typical 223 charge weight)
• Vihtavuori N340: 6.4 grains (a typical 45 ACP charge weight)

Interestingly, both took right around 13 seconds for each charge thrown. I had expected the lower charge weight to run slightly faster, but that wasn’t the case.

Mobile Phone App and Bluetooth Connectivity

In addition to the powder calibration, there’s another feature only available on the Intellidropper: a connected mobile app that’s free to download from the Apple App Store, or the Google Play Store.

Here’s what the Apple App Store page looks like for the Intellidropper App:

With the Intellidropper App you can:

• Control the Intellidropper dispenser
• See the current values (target charge weight, scale reading, etc)
• Create loads (records)
• Reference loads
• Share
• Send data from your loads directly to the scale.

When you launch the Intellidropper app, it uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to find the Intellidropper hardware and will connect to it automatically.

Conclusion

The Frankford Arsenal Intellidropper brings some big innovations to the electronic powder measure ecosystem. With optimized charge times (thanks to powder calibration) and the connected app, this product is compelling for sure.

Here are some of the pros and cons that I observed:

Pros:

• Price (around $200 street price as of the writing of this article).
• Performance (charging speed, lack of overcharges).
• Features: integrated bubble level, calibration weights, brush, cover, good capacity.
• Connected app – it’s free and is very handy for dealing with loads and controlling the Intellidropper.

Cons:

• The power button had come off in shipping (clicked right back into place).
• Like other scales in this price range, I observed some drift in zero, and it’s quite particular on consistent procedure to get good results. Warming up the scale for at least 1/2 hour will help to minimize these issues.
• Having the cover in place affected scale readings a couple times, so I decided not to use it.

I think this scale will be a great addition to my reloading room, and look for it in upcoming stories. I’d love to hear what you think about the Frankford Arsenal Intellidropper… Please leave a comment!

If you are interested in purchasing the Frankford Arsenal Intellidropper, check it out at Midsouth Shooters Supply!

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Thanks,
Gavin