{"id":519,"date":"2015-05-31T18:38:13","date_gmt":"2015-05-31T17:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/?p=519"},"modified":"2015-05-31T18:40:47","modified_gmt":"2015-05-31T17:40:47","slug":"shonky-product-konkret-mt210-moisture-meter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/shonky-product-konkret-mt210-moisture-meter\/","title":{"rendered":"Shonky Product, Konkret MT210 Moisture Meter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, I bought a cheap moisture meter (&#8220;fuktm\u00e4tare&#8221; in Swedish) called &#8220;Konkret MT210&#8221; (probably a rebranded name) in a local paint shop to measure the amount of moisture in wood to determine if it was dry enough to be painted.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_521\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-521\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5275_small.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-521\" src=\"http:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5275_small.jpg\" alt=\"Konkret MT210 moisture meter\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5275_small.jpg 800w, https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5275_small-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-521\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Konkret MT210 moisture meter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I started using it today, but after a few measurements, one of the two sharp pins that is used to probe the wood sunk into the meter and it became essentially useless. Not a good sign of quality.<\/p>\n<p>Before returning the faulty product to the shop, I decided to take it apart (it was kept together by four screws, so disassembly was straightforward) to see if it perhaps would be easy to fix it. The PCB inside it provided a surprise however. It was the most horrifically badly soldered circuit board I have ever seen. I do not even know how the manufacturer is able to produce such bad solder joints on an entire PCB. See below photos.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_522\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-522\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5270_small.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-522\" src=\"http:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5270_small.jpg\" alt=\"The innards of the moisture meter.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5270_small.jpg 800w, https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5270_small-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-522\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The innards of the moisture meter. Note how the lower probe has been pushed inwards.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_523\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-523\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5273_small.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-523\" src=\"http:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5273_small.jpg\" alt=\"Close-up of badly soldered PCB.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5273_small.jpg 800w, https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5273_small-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-523\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Close-up of badly soldered PCB.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_524\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-524\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5273_small2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-524\" src=\"http:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5273_small2.jpg\" alt=\"Even closer up of the ugly PCB.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5273_small2.jpg 800w, https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DSC_5273_small2-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-524\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Even closer up of the ugly PCB.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Misaligned components, lots of solder residue, excess solder, many lose solder blobs and even missing copper pads. It is not a pretty sight.<\/p>\n<p>So not only was this product mechanically deficient, the electronics was also built using some entirely inadequate process. I do not recommend anyone to buy this product.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, I bought a cheap moisture meter (&#8220;fuktm\u00e4tare&#8221; in Swedish) called &#8220;Konkret MT210&#8221; (probably a rebranded name) in a local paint shop to measure the amount of moisture in wood to determine if it was dry enough to be painted. I started using it today, but after a few measurements, one of the two sharp &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/shonky-product-konkret-mt210-moisture-meter\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Shonky Product, Konkret MT210 Moisture Meter<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electronics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":526,"href":"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions\/526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axotron.se\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}