Mass Probe
A slice of quartz or amethyst on a metal backing. Hang it in an Electrolytic Cell and it tells you how much metal has plated onto it. A crystal rings at one pitch, and a coat of metal on it drags the pitch down; the drop is the mass.
Making one
Grind a quartz or amethyst into a plate on the Grinding Wheel; it comes out a coarse cut. Put the plate back on the wheel and it goes standard cut, then fine cut: stop when it is as thin as you want. Hover a plate to see its cut. Craft the plate with any metal plate (shapeless) and the probe has the same cut. Only crystals that ring work (quartz and amethyst; a diamond does not).
Note: quartz and amethyst (hardness 40) are harder than the stone Grinding Wheel (30). Use the Diamond Grinding Wheel.
The three cuts
| Cut | Reads up to | Tells apart |
|---|---|---|
| Coarse | 1.9 Qu | 0.1 Qu |
| Standard | 1.2 Qu | 0.05 Qu |
| Fine | 0.6 Qu | 0.01 Qu |
A thin cut sees fine detail and not far. A thick cut sees far and coarsely. Pick by how much coat you mean to lay down. A good coat on a piece is 0.5 to 2 Qu.
Using it
Right-click a side of the cell with the probe, as for any piece to plate. While it hangs, the metal the cell plates goes onto it, and a Jade tooltip on the cell shows the reading. Take it out with an empty hand and the probe's tooltip shows the coat it carries. Carrying a probe also counts as carrying that instrument. It does not change what the cell does; it only tells you.
Careful
- Past its range the reading stops at the top and stays there, while the coat keeps growing underneath. Leave it long enough and the coat spalls off, as on any piece (you get the crystal back bare and the metal as nuggets). Trust a stuck reading and you lose the coat.
- Every reading wobbles a little. Even the fine cut is never perfectly steady.
- Run the cell above its rating and the crystal cracks: condition falls and the reading gets noisier. It never refuses to work.
- A coat cannot be cleaned off. Hang it again and the coat grows on from where it was.