Anybody who can recommend a Reliable, low-cost humidity meter? I bought one from Radio Shack for $25.00, but it gave several wildly different readings in an hour in the same place (from 50 to 86).

Thanks!

I've seen the humidity go from 50 to 86 in an hour. When you open the window in the evening on a humid day, when it's cooling down.

I've got one from Radio Shack, and it's just fine.

I use this one, which is available from many sources:

http://www.vandaking.com/us-shop/items-ht-60.html

It stores the highest and lowest readings for humidity and temperature.

--Cy--

Just holding an elecronic hygrometer, as they are called, in your hand, you can watch the temp. and humidity change. Moving it around, bringing it into the house from the store or car will affect changes. Let it sit for anhour in one spot, away from drafts, sunlight, heaters, etc. Does it stabliize?

There is a way to test them, something about putting it in a sealed plastic bag with some wet salt for a period of time, say one day. Due to the hygroscopic qualities of air and salt, the equilibrium will be reached at 75 % RH. Google it.

I use a OM-EL-USB-2 from Omega.com logs both temp/humidity from as fast as 10 seconds up to every 12 hours to total of 16,000 records for each temp/humidity. Down loads to it's own program or you can import it to excel -it's a .txt file-. Can send you a sample if anyone is interested. Set it and forget it.

TEMPERATURE
Range: -35 to 80°C (-31 to 176°F)
Resolution: 0.5°C(1°F)
Accuracy: ±1.0°C (±2.0°F)
HUMIDITY
Range: 0 to 100% RH
Resolution: 0.5% RH
Accuracy: 20 to 80% RH ±3.5% RH

PianoTek Supply Co.

www.pianoteksupply.com

Dampp-Chaser Digital Gauge. It has minimum, maximum & reset for temperature & humidity. $25.00. Oh, by the way, you'll have to pay $5.00 for their catalog. Can't purchase parts online. Good company. Small investment for good parts, tools & supplies.

Dear MM&H,

"I use a OM-EL-USB-2 from Omega.com logs both temp/humidity from as fast as 10 seconds up to every 12 hours to total of 16,000 records for each temp/humidity. Down loads to it's own program or you can import it to excel -it's a .txt file-. Can send you a sample if anyone is interested. Set it and forget it."

Does this give you a reading that you can see, or is it only downloadable to a computer?

Thanks!

I have a $80 Mannix from Schaff I carry and a $12 unit from Lowes, (lawn and garden dept) in the house and one in my shop. I get the same readings from all 3.

Confucian...only downloadable to pc...

The Omron Hobo dataloggers are pretty good, I don't remember the price range though, and you have to download to a PC.

Probably a good investment considering the value of what you are protecting.

Just a note on the Omron Hobo datalogger...Price is $69 plus you need to order cable and software $39. Datalogger Store
TEMPERATURE
Range: -20 to 70°C (-4°F to 158°F)
Resolution: 0.1°C(0.2°F)
Accuracy: ±0.4°C (±0.72°F)
HUMIDITY
Range: 25 to 95% RH
Resolution: 0.07% RH
Accuracy: 25 to 85% RH ±3.5% RH

Has a much better resolution then the system I have. Humidity Accuracy is the same

I just got a unit from Target, I think it's from Oregon Scientific. It was $29 and it stores the hi/low for both temp and humidity. It also has a remote sensor for outdoor temp (for $10 more you can get outdoor humidity as well). All that and an atomic clock to boot.

I also have a super cheap supermarket special thermometer/hygrometer (doubt if I paid more than $5 for it years ago) that, while consistently measures about 5% higher than the new unit, it's consistent (I've only seen about a 5% swing in our house so far and both units seem lock step). Not bad for such a cheap unit.

Yeah, that's it. Onset, not Omron, I had brain cramp. I've used them at work and they do well. They're a little battery powered unit that records temperature and RH at any time interval you specify. You download into a computer and print charts, etc. Very useful diagnosing humidity problems to know exactly when it is going up and down. You can also tell how much your heat runs, you'll see temperature changing.

They also carry the unit I've been using..an EL USB 2, although I got it a little cheaper...

bitWrangler...your unit will store just high/low. The ones were reffering to log data at a speicfied time interval...example, every 5 mins for 16000 data point readings...or approx. 55 days worth of data.

Oh, I understand about the differences in feature sets. The OP simply asked for a cheap reliable hygrometer and really didn't provide any other requirements other than that, and the one I mentioned certainly is cheap

Plus, if it's intended purpose is to simply track humidity readings to see if the piano's environment is stable or if something like a Dampp Chaser is required, I don't know if anything more than min/max is really required? For instance, if the readings you get for min/max don't differ more than say 5%, do you really care what it did every 5 min? I could see if you were getting a wide spread between min/max over a day that it would be useful to know what time of day that those extremes were occurring to track down the root cause.

The course of action I decided was to go with the unit that was cheap and (hopefully) reliable. If I needed more resolution based upon the readings I got from the cheap unit, then I'd either move up to a nicer unit or just simply get a DC.

Gotta tell you though, being a tech head and numbers freak, it was tough to hold myself back and go simple. However, I am going through a 12 step program to help from "over purchasing" simply based on feature set

I hear ya ... lol I use mine at work, supervise a CMM lab and have used the data to justify upgrading the HVAC system.