Is my "rapitest moisture meter" defective?

Do any of you have one of those "rapitest moisture meters"? If so, what is a 'normal' moisture reading. I just bought one, and I put the probe into my pots. It read 0.5 on the 0-10 scale; the dry end of the spectrum. I was confused by that because I had just watered, but this is my first time grow, so I thought perhaps I have been vastly underwatering. Anyway, I took the probe and stuck it into my 1 gallon jug of water. It read 1 on the 0-10 scale. Can this be right? If anyone else out there has one of these, let me know. Otherwise, I am returning the piece of sh!t to Home Depot. There is no way a gallon of water should read 'dry'.

Perturbed,

Born420

i would return it, I ave often found that using the weight in a dry pot vs, a wet pot to be the best.

Smiles,
BD

Yeah Born, thats bad. Mine goes to right the top when inserted in water. As a rule mine last a year. Acceptable for a $10 item I use so often.

Smokin

Same here

The thing is toast ... return and get another one.

The one have I have had for over a year now and it is still working great

Ya got lemon


LB

Hey i have one too

What does everyone water at????

I have been watering when the needle goes down to about 3...
How about everyone else?

sh0time

RETURNED!

I sent the piece of sh!t back to the Depot. Then I went to there nursery department to get another one. But I wasn't about to drive all the way back if it didn't work. So I tried it... put the wand in a bottle of drinking water I was carrying with me. It showed 1.5. Good thing I checked. I pulled a couple of the others out of the packages. None of them worked either. I guess the Depot got a defective batch of them. The only possibility is that I am using the darn thing wrong or something. How long does it take to get a reading? I know the pH one takes a little bit, but I let that water one sit there for a minute and it never got beyond a 1.5.

Anyway, I'm going with BD's method. Its tried and true.

Peace,

Born420

What a bunch of crap!!

Go to Lowes then .... They work instantly You stick it in and the needle jumps .... that's it !


sh0wtime, Dude let it get into the 2s at least, mid two is good or even low 2

with a hydrometer, you water your plants until its scale reaches 8 or 9, and you dont water again until its lowered to 3 or 4.
hydrometers are an almost vital piece of equipment, and are well worth finding a good one.
Nova