I recently bought an AuRacle AGT2 Gold Tester.
I am finding that my testing results are not repeatable and that the tester is basically unreliable.
I have followed the instructions carefully and have watched a number of YouTube videos on using the tester.
I am calibrating regularly using a 14K plumb calibration button.
Typical example… I calibrated with the 14kt plumb calibration button, then tested known 10kt and known 14kt gold sheet.
Both tested accurately, but then I retested the 10kt gold sheet and repeatedly got results around 14kt. I recalibrated with the button and tested the 10kt sheet again and the tester read 14kt.
Does anyone have any experience with this tester??
I looked at the customer reviews on Amazonand 54% gave it the lowest possible rating (one star) saying it didn’t work at all or it stopped working after a couple of uses…:-(…
I had the same experience as everyone who posted here…AT FIRST…Then I figured out what I was doing wrong. Before you totally give up, take these two tips from someone who uses it almost daily in my shop and it works just fine. and no GEL TUBES…I hated them.
The tip that you test with has to be totally soaked with the solution that's inside. Keep dabbing it on a paper towel until it's totally wet. I have to admit, sometimes I use my shirt tail. This gives you the contact for an accurate reading.
The other thing that's critical is your phone settings(I use my Iphone). You need to get your microphone set to maximum (not your ringer volume) . To see if you did this right, stick some ear buds in and make sure it's cranked up. I hope this works for you. I hated it at first but when I figured out what I was doing wrong, I get very repeatable results. Hope this helps. Richard
Richard
Thanks for your suggestions. Have not yet has a chance to try them out but will do shortly and will let you know how it worked for me
Thanks
Milt
I finally had a chance to follow up on Richard’s suggestions for making the AuRacle AGT 2 gold test work more reliably.
I actually did 3 things
Switched to my IPad, was originally using an I Phone. (Don’t think this made a difference, just something I did)
Made sure that the microphone jack was set to maximum volume
Made sure that the pen tip was wet by dabbing it on paper towel
Then I calibrated it with the 14k calibration disk
I then began testing on gold samples that I had that were a known karat including 10kt, 14kt, 18kt and 22kt.
I did over 75 tests. I re-calibrated twice when the device told me to.
100% of the tests that I did were accurate / correct.
I think that the other times I used the AGT tester, I may have had the speaker volume full volume rather than the microphone/headphone jack and I may not have paid enough attention to making sure that the pen tip was wet for each test.
and 54% gave it the lowest possible rating (one star) saying it didn’t work at all or it stopped working after a couple of uses…:-(…