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Granny

  • Posts: 823
TDS Meter Calibration
« on: January 03, 2022, 10:41:47 am »
Hi anyone ever done this?
It says on the back Calibrate with NaCl
Ta

AuRavelling79

  • Posts: 25383
Re: TDS Meter Calibration
« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2022, 11:19:25 am »
Hi anyone ever done this?
It says on the back Calibrate with NaCl
Ta

Nope. I have a couple of times gone round to a wc friend and measured some pure water and tap water with both our meters.

Tap was with in one or two and pure exactly the same.

So I don't worry about it.
It's a game of three halves!

Smudger

  • Posts: 13438
Re: TDS Meter Calibration
« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2022, 01:33:50 pm »
Yes I used to do it - you can buy a bottle from people like gaps or eBay

Never had a meter go faulty and mis read - now I just have a second meter and use that to confirm the first meter every so often ( yearly maybe 🤪 )

Darran
Never argue with an idiot, they will only bring you down to their level, and beat you with experience

JandS

  • Posts: 4267
Re: TDS Meter Calibration
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2022, 03:56:33 pm »
I have two TDS meters and both read within 1 for tap and pure............bought the NaCl and tested with both and both read the same, as in not what it said on the bottle so not sure how "accurate" the stuff is..........wc cleaning opposite me even tried his on it and it read 280...mine read 285...think it should read 360 but not sure because threw the stuff away............when I change resin I get a 0 reading which gradually goes up as the weeks go by so meters must be ok.
Impossible done straight away, miracles can take a little longer.

Granny

  • Posts: 823
Re: TDS Meter Calibration
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2022, 05:15:56 pm »
Ta I got another meter 4 ppm difference between them. Old one was reading higher.

dazmond

  • Posts: 23966
Re: TDS Meter Calibration
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2022, 06:38:16 pm »
I have 2 tds meters and they both read 020 from my tap....

Ive never calibrated a meter in 12 years of WFP...
price higher/work harder!

Phil Napper

  • Posts: 1
Re: TDS Meter Calibration
« Reply #6 on: January 06, 2022, 09:43:59 am »
TDS is not actually a proper unit (like kilogrammes, litres or volts) but an indicative value based on conductivity (which is a proper SI unit, measured in micro Siemens per cm ie. uS/cm).

They base the TDS value on a solution of NaCl (sodium chloride or salt). However, this may not be the only mineral in the water in your area, in fact it is quite unlikely.

The TDS value is calculated by multiplying the conductivity by a scaling factor. This factor can be from 0.4-0.9 depending on the impurities (minerals) in the water in your area. Really to get the correct TDS you would need to take a water sample, evaporate off the liquid and weigh the remaining solids. This will tell you the scaling factor for that sample. To make matters worse the relationship between conductivity and TDS is not always linear (see https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/118/1/012019/pdf) and is likely to change from day to day as different impurities find there way into the mains water. TDS (and conductivity) also changes with temperature, the amount of change is again dependant on the impurity.
 
To get around these limitations meter makers calibrate to a known chemical (often NaCl) at a known PPM and temperature (often 20 degrees C). By taking a temperature reading at the probe the we can compensate for a temperature difference between the calibrated temperature and the actual temperature, based on the assumption of NaCl impurities. This is how the Spring (Europe) Limited V16 TDS works.

However it all comes out in the wash because....

Since pure water has very few minerals in it, the conductivity is very, very low and approaches zero. Because of this the error in the TDS value also reduces, no matter what scaling factor the meter has been calibrated to. TDS meters tend to get more accurate as you approach a PPM of zero.

I hope this helps.

AuRavelling79

  • Posts: 25383
Re: TDS Meter Calibration
« Reply #7 on: January 07, 2022, 04:30:10 pm »
TDS is not actually a proper unit (like kilogrammes, litres or volts) but an indicative value based on conductivity (which is a proper SI unit, measured in micro Siemens per cm ie. uS/cm).

They base the TDS value on a solution of NaCl (sodium chloride or salt). However, this may not be the only mineral in the water in your area, in fact it is quite unlikely.

The TDS value is calculated by multiplying the conductivity by a scaling factor. This factor can be from 0.4-0.9 depending on the impurities (minerals) in the water in your area. Really to get the correct TDS you would need to take a water sample, evaporate off the liquid and weigh the remaining solids. This will tell you the scaling factor for that sample. To make matters worse the relationship between conductivity and TDS is not always linear (see https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/118/1/012019/pdf) and is likely to change from day to day as different impurities find there way into the mains water. TDS (and conductivity) also changes with temperature, the amount of change is again dependant on the impurity.
 
To get around these limitations meter makers calibrate to a known chemical (often NaCl) at a known PPM and temperature (often 20 degrees C). By taking a temperature reading at the probe the we can compensate for a temperature difference between the calibrated temperature and the actual temperature, based on the assumption of NaCl impurities. This is how the Spring (Europe) Limited V16 TDS works.

However it all comes out in the wash because....

Since pure water has very few minerals in it, the conductivity is very, very low and approaches zero. Because of this the error in the TDS value also reduces, no matter what scaling factor the meter has been calibrated to. TDS meters tend to get more accurate as you approach a PPM of zero.

I hope this helps.

I'm impressed.  ;D
It's a game of three halves!