SafeDip Pool Tester

Yeah I hope so too, the link didn’t embed but I manually loaded it. Good Clip, I’m hoping some motivation to come after I have nice lazy woot-week. 8/6-8-10 I’ll be working 7:30-6 with no real lunch breaks, and rewarding myself with a Fang Island concert on the 10th. Should make for an interesting week.

Also, WhatsamattaU, you might be right. I should pace myself better. Here was my average Woot-night looks like come the switch- from my Point of View. I uploaded it for the guys at Deals.Woot Chat but figured you might get a kick out of it :tongue: *I definitely don’t recommend watching it front to back, but skimming through it. *

Also, turn down your speakers, I forgot this thing records audio too.

Don’t get “pool stored”

Get HCL at Hardware stire
Get CL at Wholesale club via Bleach
Get Alk at wholesale club via Baking Soda
Get Salt via Home Depot (water softener salt, not pool salt… NaCl is NaCl)

Get a good test kit and other stuff as needed online via pool center, or others based on price.

Of course I do go to Leslie’s from time to time (just got a light bulb), but I don’t trust their advice. No matter how bad the algae bloom is, enough bleach will kill it w/o side effects. (I use about 9 1.5G bottles to shock mine to 15ppm) (<$30)

Recommended (non-commercial) sites

Poolforum.com

No it’s not. Alk is the resistance to change of the pH, not the pH.

Personally, this is a nice toy, but I only trust a good test kit. I like the color change ones… all the shades of red/yellow look the same to me. :slight_smile:

Sleep. Sleep makes everything better. (neuro glances at clock; do as I suggest, not as I do?) And I think it’s easy for us to forget that this is “just” woot: as important as the community is for many of us, when it stops being fun and feels like pressure, it’s not worth it. As much as I miss my partner in UnNinja jokes, I admire Narfcake for knowing when he was done and having the strength to walk away. I know I should, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I took a few breaks earlier this year, however, and it was nice to step back and take a breather - even if I did get pulled back in!

You have seemed somewhat absent since the woot-off. It was pretty disappointing to me as well, especially given that I didn’t get a Box of Cupcakes in the previous Woot-off’s, what with the server issues. Then this one there simply weren’t any. Then we come back from that with multiple high dollar items in a row.
It is just a forum, it’s fun, but life is out there as well. Balance is important in any activity. Maybe set a timer, or just choose one item nightly to investigate. That’s usually what I do, and I enjoy it. Anymore than that, and hopefully some Woot credit would start rollin’ into my account.

Finally a woot I feel I can actually comment on.
I have been in aquatics for 18 years, and I can tell you that I haven’t seen a handheld electronic test kit that is accurate out of the box or is accurate after the first couple goes.
All electronic test systems need to be calibrated and cleaned pretty regularly, and that requires , wait for it…
Another test kit. So just go out and get one of those kits that come in a blue box that measures pH, and Cl- if you aren’t that serious. Add ability to test alkalinity, calcium hardness If you care more.
If you have and outdoor pool, TDS are irrelevant. There is so much great outdoor stuff floating in you water you would have to dump half the pool regularly.
And just remember folks, those pool stores want to sell you stuff and in a small enough package that you have to buy a lot of bottles and a good chunk of that stuff is available at the grocery store. O, and every time you add one of their powders to you pool, the TDS goes up…and they will try to sell you something in an undersized container to fix that too.

I remember and still miss NightGhost. He quit cold turkey. I hope you hang in there CD! Don’t go the way of the “ghost”, it doesn’t have to be “All or Nothing”!

The only usefull tests here for me would be chlorine and ph. I can get 50 test strips with more usefull info on amazon for $10. So this thing has to last more than 10 years for me to get my money out of it. Somehow I doubt it. I love gadgets but it’s a pass.

Bullseye. And if this thing doesn’t measure it, I’m out. I’m not spending $100 just to measure pH and chlorine, then still have to drag out the test kits to measure other things.

what he said + Borax from your local grocery store. :slight_smile:

www.troublefreepool.com can set anyone straight on balancing your pool.

I was showing the totally cute shopping cart cover over at kids.woot to a coworker, when she started clicking around the different Woot! sites. She got super excited at this offering until she read it wasn’t a taser.

I would recommend buying liquid chlorine from a pool supply store. I use about 5 gallons to shock my pool at an expense of <$10. It is far more economical than bleach.

+1 BBB FTMFW

I am the guy who did the one review at PoolSupplyWorld. I’ve been using this tester all summer, and I would still recommend this device, especially at this price. I have a 22,000 gallon pool with a simple 1-pump/filter system. I take a water sample with this & test it, then add chemicals accordingly. Very simple. $40 a month on chemicals and ~2 hours a week is much cheaper than $180/month for a pool girl.

My main gripe is construction quality–this thing uses pretty weak plastic. Otherwise, it gets the job done quickly & accurately. I have never compared results to other water test methods, but my pool looks great, so it must be close enough!

This does pH, not alkalinity.
You make an excellent point on this.

In my case, I have been faring very well all summer with just the pH test from this tester. If I find myself adding more chemicals than usual to maintain pH balance but everything else is in-check, I add alkalinity chemicals to stabilize.

Does this tester tell you how much of what chemical to add to get the pool’s chem’s balanced?

OOL. If you notice, there is no P in our OOL, please keep it that way.

No, but this will.

(and once you know your pool, you’ll know)

But pool girls can have other benefits. :slight_smile:

Do you really spend that much time/money on chemicals? I have a 35k pool where I throw in a 1/2 Gal of acid every 5 days or so. (I have a SWG). Checking chem takes maybe 5 min (generally I just check pH, and Cl (maybe with a drop kit if I want to play) and empty the skimmers and Polaris. 15 min tops.

Sure, twice a season I have to clean the filter and that takes 2 hours or so, and the SWG has been known to fail and cost $$, but 2 hours a week? You must be doing something wrong (probably got “pool stored”)

Robert

I second this. I buy liquid chlorine in 2.5 gallon jugs for a few bucks. It’s “guaranteed stronger than any other chlorine source”, but it’s cheap none-the-less. I will say, however, it certainly smells and reacts on my skin more harshly than household bleach. Plus I only have to make one stop for all my chemicals. Acid is like $2.25 a gallon there. Everything is very reasonably cheap and under one roof.