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How to use a TDS Meter Now TDS stands for total dissolved solids.
It’s a measure of the dissolved things in your water, and there are many things dissolved
in your water. Water is the universal solvent they say, and it’s because water typically
absorbs microscopic amounts of just about everything that it touches.
So if you’re using a reverse osmosis system to remove total dissolved solids, you need
to own a TDS meter, so that you can test the efficiency of your membrane.
So here’s how this works. Now this is a little battery operated device, uses one of
those small button batteries, like a watch battery. It has two little metal probes on
the end here underneath this cap, and what you do is you take two glasses of water; one
from unfiltered water and one from the reverse osmosis system and let those sit on the counter
and come to room temperature. After they’ve sat for an hour and they’re
at room temperature, you take the TDS meter and you simply press the button, turn it on,
and dip it into water, and wait until you get a reading and write that down. Clean off
the probes, take a little Q-tip or a piece of paper towel, wipe them off thoroughly and
then put it in the other glass of water, wait, get a reading, write that down, and now you
do some math. And essentially what you’re looking for is 80% removal compared to the
incoming unfiltered water. So, for example, if you have 100 parts per
million on your incoming unfiltered water, your reverse osmosis system should be removing
a minimum of 80 parts per million of that total dissolved solids. So you would get a
reading of 20 or lower ideally. If you were to receive a reading above 20, then you’re
not removing the full 80% and your membrane is exhausted and needs to be replaced.
And obviously your incoming number is going to vary; I just picked 100 because it makes
for easy math. But you want at least 80% removal of total dissolved solids.
Owning a TDS meter is a must if you are a reverse osmosis system owner, there’s really
no other way for you to scientifically verify if your system is functioning properly.
You need a TDS meter to test for that, and here it is it’s the ZT-2.