Rapitest 1845 digital ph meter??

Just picked one up, they are pretty cheap so I figured I would give it a go. Usually cheap means garbage and I am guessing thats what it means in this case..

Every ready I take usually ends up back at 7 or very very close to it. Or I will take a reading and it was say 6.5 or something, I will then clean the meter and test again in the exact same soil and it will say 7. I am very confused by this POS and wondering if its not actually a POS and its just user error???


I would love for my soil to be 7.0 but I doubt its exactly right on. I mean hell from what I have read about this thing you can test water with this meter. I will take the meter put it in a cup of water and it will ready 6.something then I will remove it stick it in the same glass of water after cleaning it and it will say 7.0 like this doesnt make sense, am I over thinking this piece of junk?

thanks guys!

Same thing with my Rapitest, I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong or it's junk

I just cleaned mine before testing it every time with one of those dish cleaning things that has soap in it and a brillow pad (*sp) on the scrubber part. seems to be getting much better readings when I do that.

Get some tap water and some vinegar. test the tap water first then ad a drop of vinegar to it and see if it changes. mine ph went way down when I did that so at least I was getting some kind of action out of the thing.

I am probably just going to pick up some strips tomorrow and test for sure as I am still getting some fluctuating answers from my meter. My soil after adding my water with a little bit of firt in it is coming out around 6.0... being that this is a soil grow I have read that I should be shooting for more around 6.2-6.8 to prevent lockout and such. Who knows though thats just what I think I may have read and could be completely wrong. I also have found out (if this meter is working right) that I have been giving my babies water that is in like the 5.7 range which is definitely low. going to grab some ph up tomorrow and try to get my water up around 6.5.

hope this helps a little, I am a noob so you also may not want to listen to what I am saying hahaha

after just doing a little bit more research I have found out that distilled water should have a ph of 7.0 which is what I am using and when I tested with my meter it said it was around 5.8...... wtf.