Digital Thermometer tip

[Guest]

I have a Taylor digital thermometer, which is identical to the Polder.

Like many of you I'm sure, I burned up the probe exposing it to 400+ heat. Seems to be a common occurence.

The symptom of the bad probe is that it always reads "HIGH" regardless of the actual temp.

In playing around with it the other day, I found that if I bent the wire back at a 180 degree angle so it runs along the short leg of the probe, it works fine again. My conjecture is that these probes fail at the exit point of the probe and bending the wire back restores continuity.

Anyway, I used a little aluminum heat duct tape to tape the wire to the probe "handle" and everything is working again. Sure beats throwing away probes!

Just thought I'd pass it along as it may save somebody else $10.

 

[Jim Minion]

have you tested for accuracy?
Jim

 

[Guest]

It seems to be close enough for "government work".

It reads about 2 degrees lower than my digital thermostats at room temperature and it hovers at 210 degrees in boiling water at sea level.

It's been my experience that relying on any consumer thermometer for better than +/- 5 degrees is risky business. My deep fry thermometer and instant read pen don't reliably do any better than that.

This probe "quick fix" probably doesn't mean you shouldn't buy a new probe. But, it beats throwing one away and being within 2 degrees is lot more useful than the dang thing flashing "HIGH" at you!