Pin and pinless moisture meters

The pros and cons of pinless and pin-type moisture meters. March 20, 2001

Q.
What are the pros and cons of pinless and pin moisture meters?

Forum Responses
With pinless meters, you can check the same board twice in the same area and get totally different readings. From a quality control standpoint, accuracy is questionable. Surface M/C, shell M/C, and core M/C--you can't check these with the pinless meter.

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There are pros and cons for both meters--together they are awesome. The pinless meter is fast, no holes, reads under 6.5% MC, is not sensitive to temperature (much) and averages an area. The pin meter is not sensitive to species (much), can read gradients, is widely used, and has a variety of probes.

In a test I made with both, there was no clear preference. Note however that neither can read accurately above 25% MC.

Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor

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Most of my stock is carried in full two inch thick material. I have found that using a moisture meter that does not have long pins to penetrate into the center of the board provides less than desirable results.

I use the Delmhorst R2000 with the slide hammer sampling instrument with one and one half inch insulated pins. The slide hammer attachment can be used with the J2000 as well, if penetration is required. The slide hammer unit I like is the 26-ES.

All of my wood is air dried. This unit has been a valuable tool in determining the status of wood that has been drying.