Review on Digital Wood Moisture Meter - Pin-Type Moisture Detector For Building Materials, Firewood, Walls, Floors, And Paper - Yellow Dampness Tester For Water Leak Detection by Dave Tapia

I’m a newbie to wood moisture meters. Bought this because it was inexpensive. Needed one because the exterior wood stain and sealer I want to use requires application to wood with moisture levels below 12 percent. The sealant manufacturer recommends purchasing a moisture meter. Also plan to use it to check firewood next winter from a tree we brought down a few months ago.My biggest beef is with the wood "calibration”. There are 10 settings depending on the wood type or hardness (settings A-J - not 8 as stated in the product listing). There is a massive conversion table on the reverse of the instructions. Some wood types are listed by common names, others by Latin genus and species. Some are are listed twice by both naming conventions. Some are listed twice next to each other with the same name, one capitalized and one not. There are so many species of pine listed (15) with a different calibration for each, I had to look them all up. The picnic table I’m staining just says "pine” which means a lot of guessing as to whether I have the right calibration selected. Add to this that the huge table is actually missing some popular wood types. The tree we cut down was Alder and there is zero listing for any type of Alder species.You basically have to carry around this calibration table wherever you intend to use the meter. I immediately scanned a copy because it’s nowhere to be found online. Good luck if you lose the table.The last issue is a little nitpicky, but the instructions, table and product listing were written by someone whose second language is English. That’s generally ok, many of us have slogged through that issue before. But there are maybe too many misspellings, inaccurate descriptions and blurred meanings for a precision device instruction manual.All that said, the device itself appears to be well built without any functional problems. Does everything it’s supposed to do. The temperature sensor was reasonably accurate. I can’t tell if the moisture meter is entirely accurate, but it’s not wildly out of expected ranges.This is one of those products where the product itself is fine, but the critical pre-sale support is definitely lacking. Might be worth seeing if there’s a meter with less complicated calibration in the same price point.