I gave up on Ph meters

[next]

my ppm meter says to store dry, ph meter wants to be kept wet.. depends on what you have, I usualy check the instruction book or the manufacturers website

 

[Locked]

You don't want the ph probes to dry out. I don't store them in solution because I use my ph meter almost everyday. I just make sure the last thing I ph is my water and then flick any excess water off and cap it. Been doing this forever and my probes usually last close to a year.

 

[sopappy]

I'm going to jump in here because I have started to see consistent results and nothing, I mean nothing ticks me off more then taking a reading and then 5 minutes later taking the same reading and the number is different. I actually lost it and threw my last $90- meter against a wall. Dumb.
Now that I'm trying hydro, I dropped $200- on a this Milwaukee. I calibrated as instructed and pried off the knobs as they were too easy to nudge.
The cap holds a bit of water and the orange sponge thing (I almost threw it away) to keep it wet.
The probe has two slits in the end and I rinse it by letting water flow through the slits and the flip it over to flow the other way through the slits and I keep doing this until it reads the pH of my tap water 8.7 then I take a reading, it takes a couple seconds but it will stabilize and I trust that number.
I do that rinse under the tap every time, before and after every reading.
It is CONSISTENT.
I figure when I don't see my tap water at 8.7, it'll be time to re calibrate.
I always have water in that cap that fits snugly over the probe.
I suppose this looks like a plug for the meter, it isn't. I'm just thinking that rinsing is critical and I do notice it takes awhile longer to get to 8.7 if I've used it in a nutrient solution.

I just wanted to add that temperature plays a role in this too. I was perplexed when rinsing one day: Global warming and all, the tap water was so cold, I thought it might damage the probe so I turned both taps on for the rinse and found I was seeing 8.4 and thought okay, here we go, more voodoo... and then I turned off the hot and it moved to the usual 8.7

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[zem]

hey there sopappy, if it makes you feel better, I think that the throwing it against the wall gesture was fully justified

 

[sopappy]

I must confess, it is very satisfying in the moment especially when the pos explodes into all those pieces but then the remorse over the 90 bucks kicks in and I generally feel pretty sheepish cleaning it all up.

 

[zem]

sooo, old thread, I just wanted to update it and tell you how i solved my ph problem, and that is by buying a brand new bluelab ph pen, it was just above 100$ over 1 year ago, the other day, i was hopeless from it, i thought it was so slow to give a reading that it must be almost dead, so i decided to go a bit more thorough on the cleaning with toothbrush and dish soap, then calibrated and hydrated it overnight, i was so surprised to see it back to its original speed, actually i can swear that it was never that fast I consider every day above 1 year on a probe to be a good lifetime, and i think that this probe will last a while longer. It is a very high quality piece and i love it.

 

[yarddog]

thank you zem, for the info. i am using an el-cheapo yellow one, i have an old one that was getting very slow. i'll give cleaning it a try.

 

[sopappy]

sooo, old thread, I just wanted to update it and tell you how i solved my ph problem, and that is by buying a brand new bluelab ph pen, it was just above 100$ over 1 year ago, the other day, i was hopeless from it, i thought it was so slow to give a reading that it must be almost dead, so i decided to go a bit more thorough on the cleaning with toothbrush and dish soap, then calibrated and hydrated it overnight, i was so surprised to see it back to its original speed, actually i can swear that it was never that fast I consider every day above 1 year on a probe to be a good lifetime, and i think that this probe will last a while longer. It is a very high quality piece and i love it.

Maintenance dudes, maintenance. After every session, I swish my probe around in vinegar and rinse it under the tap. I take good care of my Milwaukee too, I store the clean probe in de-mineralized or distilled water.

 

[zem]

sopappy I worry that vinegar might hurt the probe, also it is not recommended to store in distilled water, the right storage solution is normally KCl but i don't know the effect of any if these

 

[Hushpuppy]

I have 2 containers full of water. one is a solo cup of straight water that I use for rinsing my probe. The second container is a measuring cup that I keep Kcl solution in for storing my pen. I never put my cap back on anymore. I just keep it in the cup of Kcl solution when i'm not using it. I rinse and dry off the extra water every time I pull it out and then rinse it again before putting it back in the "storage" cup. This has proven to give my pH pen long life and accuracy. Doing this method, I only have to recalibrate every couple months.

 

[Budlight]

I've used a combination between a try metre and a Hannah pH pen I've had both of them for about six years use the trimeter off and on but I have used my Hanna consistently whether it was for growing or in my hot tub never used anything to store them other then dry them off and put the cap back on the Hana The trimeter I've never had to clean it or put a cap on it to store it and has always worked well the Hanna was great too until I dropped it and broke the glass bulb but it is only 50 bucks to replace still in replacement of the house or not I've been using one of these cheap yellow ones they were a pain in the *** to dial in but once you get it dialled in Took me about a half an hour seems like the little adjustment knob on the back kept moving seems to work pretty well you just have to turn it off and on in between each reading

 

[sopappy]

sopappy I worry that vinegar might hurt the probe, also it is not recommended to store in distilled water, the right storage solution is normally KCl but i don't know the effect of any if these

so far, so good re the vinegar but it gets rinsed under running water immediately
I use de-mineralized when there but will settle for distilled, again, seems okay so far, been months
what is KCl ?

nevermind, I keep forgetting it's 2016
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CJIDH7Y/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I'm not sold on that stuff. I read a comment about a build-up on the probe after awhile.
I don't think my vinegar wash or de-mineralized will hurt anything.

 

[sopappy]

I have 2 containers full of water. one is a solo cup of straight water that I use for rinsing my probe. The second container is a measuring cup that I keep Kcl solution in for storing my pen. I never put my cap back on anymore. I just keep it in the cup of Kcl solution when i'm not using it. I rinse and dry off the extra water every time I pull it out and then rinse it again before putting it back in the "storage" cup. This has proven to give my pH pen long life and accuracy. Doing this method, I only have to recalibrate every couple months.

I just read a comment about that stuff evaporating fast, watch you don't end up with a dry probe. I found mine like that, sitting in a dry jar, freaked. But it seemed to have survived.
Every time I've gone to calibrate mine, it's been okay. Do you find you actually have to adjust every 3 months or are you just confirming?

 

[zem]

my bluelab pen is now 14 months old, i use it several times per day, which i think keeps the probe active, and it is working like a charm

 

[Hushpuppy]

Mine is a Bluelab pH pen. It actually has a calibrate reminder that tells me once a month or so to calibrate it. It is rarely off by more than a tenth.

The Kcl(potassium chloride) does climb out onto the pen a lot because it precipitates as the water evaporates. I just rinse the precipitate off each time and periodically add a little fresh water back to keep the pen well submerged.

 

[Hushpuppy]

If you look close at the center of the pic, you can see my Bluelab pen sitting in a measuring glass. You can see some of the potassium salt climbing up the side of the pen. I ignore it until it gets a little thick then I rinse it off in the red cup that is sitting in the tape roll. Tape rolls are great for keeping cups of water from getting knocked over

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[Hushpuppy]

Red cup in foreground is solution from the rez that I was fixin to check. Yeti cup is mountain dew, my other addiction.

I just have to keep repeating to myself... don't drink from the red cup :doh:

 

[sopappy]

If you look close at the center of the pic, you can see my Bluelab pen sitting in a measuring glass. You can see some of the potassium salt climbing up the side of the pen. I ignore it until it gets a little thick then I rinse it off in the red cup that is sitting in the tape roll. Tape rolls are great for keeping cups of water from getting knocked over

the tape roll trick, cute, but I still see evidence of spills there
I am frankly amazed I haven't electrocuted myself yet,
water and electricity... what was I thinking!??!?

I'm not sitting my probe in that stuff, I bet it's planned obsolescence.
What is the ppm when it's sitting in that solution. I bet it ain't zero.
I don't want any parts on my probe in storage.

wow, I got 4 bags out of this tiny deceptive little nugget

 

[sopappy]

Red cup in foreground is solution from the rez that I was fixin to check. Yeti cup is mountain dew, my other addiction.

I just have to keep repeating to myself... don't drink from the red cup :doh:

Rosebud is partial to Thrive,
I don't eat, drink, or smoke near the plants. I used to use a painters jump suit but that just got silly.

 

[zem]

HP I have the same pen, strange, I never knew it has a calibration reminder, i went well more than a month without calibration, under it inside the tin is some storage and calibration fluids inside closed containers, which give the container weight, i have it all wrapped in a sandwich plastic bag so to minimise evaporation

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