Burpee said this to a customer about the 3 prong meter that I have. Of course there were a bunch of folks posting reviews on the product that could not get it to work and this was responding to one of the posts:
We are sorry that you have experienced some challenges with your electronic soil tester. The tester does need to be completely clean before each use, and the soil must be warm and fairly moist. It takes several minutes to take the reading. It will not work in dry soil or in straight liquids. If you have tried it in these conditions, please contact our Customer Service team at 1-800-888-1447, or
[email protected] so we can help.
Thank you for your feedback.
- Burpee
Now another lady went further, stating "to clean" meant rubbing and soaking the prongs in vinegar, and wait for the mild acid to cleanse the metal as acid does on metals. Here is her post, and I understand it to be speaking of oxidation on the probes of these inexpensive 10 and 20 dollar meters:
pantlady
ยท 5 years ago ph meter good meter if you do this
when i first got this meter i did the same thing as every body else and tested water and orange juice and the meter did not move at all so i purchased a digital meter and it did the same thing it would not read any thing other than 7 either even after cleaning the probe of both meters
here is what i have discovered the hard way when you stick these meters in water the probe absorbs some kind of mineral from the water making it not able to register either water or orange juice or any thing else
so here is the solution that i came up with clean your probe ends with a soft scrubby then insert it into viinager that cleans off the probe of all the contaminants on the probe leave it in the viniger till the meter reads about 4-4.2 it might take some time for the vinager to work you might have to use the soft scrubby several times before it works right again then you can test your soil and do not put it into a glass of water because that will contaminate the probe ends again so it will not read any thing
after that you will not have clean it again or to do any thing to the meter just stick it in the ground that cleans the probe automatically with the soil
bottom line "DON'T USE WATER TO TEST THESE METERS" also make sure your soil is moist use a water meter to measure the moisture before use because all these meters work of off the ability to transmit electricity through the soil and dry soil does not transmit electricity NOW BOTH MY METERS WORK and are pretty close to each other in readings.
End of her post.
So...I still do not trust them and that is why I have 3 - and they better agree when in use. Like thermometers you know? Ever been at the store and there is this 1 thermometer that is whacked out of range for some reason? I think these type pH meters are all about that thermometer grade of quality.
