Do you know how to identify the quality of a metal cash drawers?

Details about the weight VS. quality of the cash drawers:
 
Generally, customers prefer to use weight to measure the quality of the same types cash drawers, because they think thickness of the metal material will be heavier so that the quality will be better, which is a reasonable opinion to some extent, but not completely accurate.

Based on the professional perspective, the cash drawer should be compared from the plate types, thickness, production technics, process of manufacturing and so on.

1. Plate type: divided into Zinc plating plate, and cold-rolled plate. 
There are two kinds of Zinc plating plate, one is electroplated and also plated zinc material, this kind of Zinc plating plate can also be called electrolytic plate.  Another is a common  Zinc plating plate with chemical plating  process. Whether it is electroplated or chemically plated, it all can prevent rust, which are expensive. In particular, the price of electrolytic plate is the highest, next is ordonary Zinc plating plate.
The cheapest one is cold-rolled plate. The surface of cold-rolled plate is easily oxidized (ie, rusted). The cold-rolled plate surface needs to be sprayed to prevent rust.

 Our ECD410D/410 uses the electrolytic plate imported from South Korea, so the price is relatively high. The rest of the cash drawers uses Shanghai Baosteel's Zinc plating plate or cold-rolled sheet (see the material stock at the time of production), and the cost price of cold-rolled sheet will be lower.

2. Plate thickness: The current cash drawers is basically 0.8mm thickness of plate. ECD410D/410 shell under-plate support 0.9mm electrolytic plate, load-bearing frame is 1.2mm electrolytic plate, more stronger thickness and the price will be higher. In addition, there is an tolerance in the thickness of manufacturing, generally ±0.03mm tolerance is acceptable, the 0.77mm to 0.83 mm for general tolerance of our 0.8mm thickness cash drawers. So that the difference between 77mm to 83mm can cause a difference of weight of one cash drawer in the bulk order. Tolerances will exist in mass production.

3. Production technics and process of manufacturing for cash drawer : Stamping - Welding - Dusting - Assembly

• Stamping: Different tonnages have different machinery strengths. Larger tonnage will comes the stronger punching , which can be molded at one punching and cause the angular position will be more delicate. If the stamping tonnage is small and cannot be molded at one time, which may result in the edges and corners  being not molded enough. At present, we are using larger tonnage stamping above 120T.

• Welding: There are argon arc welding and butt-welding. Our ECD410/410D is argon arc welding. And rest of the drawers are butt-welding. The argon arc welding has small welding spot and the process will be more expensive than butt-welding.

• Powder spraying (can be understood as painting): Our cash drawers are all made of electrostatic powder, evenly sprayed and consistent in thickness. If the use of Zinc plating plate or electrolytic plate only spray the outer surface that users can see. But the cold-rolled sheet need to spray the outer and inner surface because it is resistant to rust.
  It's worth to noting that the powdering can affect the weight of the cash drawers. Generally, a two-sides spray will cause a weight difference of 0.1-0.2kg on the cash drawer. Such as Zinc plating plate cash drawer of the same thickness are lighter than cold-rolled plate drawers, which are spraied on both sides. But actually this lighter plate  with better quality.

• Assembly: All of parts are put together in batches before assembly, and they will scratch each other to some extent. The material of our ECD410D/410 cash box is plastic-sealed to prevent scratching during the assembly process, the production workers will tear off the plastic film and then assemble it. Such plastic seal plus tearing labor works that comes costs. That's why ECD410D/410 with reasonable higher price than others.

Above all, when comparing the quality of the cash box, please do not just concern about the weight, just like the cash drawers made by the Zinc plating plate will be lighter than the cold rolled plate, but it is actually better. In short, manufacturers always will pay more attention to the quality and details of the products and producing processes.
Good products take time to prove themselves and become classics!