spoke tension meter

dazzzer

I was look at getting a park TM 1 meter but i noticed on amazon they have something called pofet meter that look the same apart from the colour and its a lot cheaper, i could probably buy three of them and still have money over . so i am Just wondering if anyone has tried the cheaper version or has both to compare .

veronese68

I'd not heard of it but looking at it I reckon it would be fine. Even with the Park one you don't get a precise measurement of what the tension actually is, although there is a conversion chart I don't believe it gives an accurate figure. The important thing is to have even spoke tension and that it is high enough that spokes don't work loose. Using that you can at least be confident the tension is even.

ugo.santalucia

The requirement for an accurate meter becomes relevant as you reduce the number of spokes and work with lighter components.
If you just want to build a set of 32/36 spokes wheels, using robust rims and spokes with a minimum gauge of 1.8mm, then you can do without one, or you can use a non calibrated one, like the Park or presumably the one you have seen on Amazon

veronese68

ugo.santalucia said:

If you just want to build a set of 32/36 spokes wheels, using robust rims and spokes with a minimum gauge of 1.8mm, then you can do without one, or you can use a non calibrated one, like the Park or presumably the one you have seen on Amazon

It's just a Park copy, should do the same job

edward.s

I have the Park one and its surprisingly close to the values in the lookup tables when used on some spare spokes with weights suspended from them. I hesitate to call that a calibration but it gave me a bit of confidence in the figures.

I guess you could do the same with the cheaper one and see how that goes?

In some ways the absolute values don't matter too much on more robust wheels, certainly not as much as the relative values do, so anything that measures consistently would work.

As Ugo says, for some components its more important to measure the absolute values, but then you really need a different kind of tool.

itboffin

I just bought one as i know a couple of my wheelsets need attention and i've always wanted to be able to true a wheel