Spoke Tension Gauge

Complete garbage. Is useless and unreliable. Really disappointed!

If I pluck with my thumbnail, if I hold the cross-over spoke tight against the spoke I am testing, if at each spoke I hit the SET button to remember that reading before moving on to a different spoke, and if I only try to get between 80% and 120% of the average spoke tension for that side of the wheel, it works awesomely. I was surprised it remembers the front wheel spoke lengths I set on the iPad, when I open the app on my iPhone. It also remembers the rear wheel spoke lengths, but I first noticed this feature on a front wheel. Keeps track separately for both, I just had not noticed. I was surprised it tunes differently than a piano string. When the tension is too high, and I hear a lower pitched clunk mixed together with the musical note, the tension is too high just like the app says. With my deformed wheel, I had to loosen a surprising amount to get it back between the 80% and 120% where it again sounds nice. With my slightly deformed wheel, which I last tuned many years ago, I cannot get a perfect circle graph of all sixteen spokes on one side, although I can consistently get a very round circle on the other side. Once I started pushing the cross-over spoke against the spoke I am testing, I got essentially the same reading every time I plucked that spoke. I wanted to just set all the tensions on that side almost exactly the same. Almost exactly the same tension, does not work with my deformed wheel running true left and right and up and down. I studied the specifications for a popular hand-held tension meter, and found out why it can get the same reading, while the app cannot. With the popular hand-held tension meter, when you look up the chart, the very next hand-held number reading may actually be 15 kg tension different. The hand-held gives the same number, across quite a bit different tensions. The popular hand-held comes with a gauge you can measure the spoke thickness. Unless there is some feature I have missed, with the app you have to know which thickness of spoke you are using.

I’m very impressed with this app suite. A bit of a learning curve to negotiate but really very well thought out and presented. Over 45 years of building and several thousand built wheels informs my evaluation. The app will not replace well executed technique. If you are just starting out, read some of the wealth of published documentation and check out Joey Mesa’s videos. Employed properly, the app will provide a high degree of accuracy and verification of the objectives sought by skilled wheel builders: measured and confirmed uniformity of tension within tightly held limits of radial and lateral deviation. Instructions are clear, with an additional set of contextual hints. And it’s fast. Left open on your workbench the app will report instantly on any spoke you care to investigate without having to stop, pick up your manual tension gauge, test (maybe more than once) swap the gauge for a spoke wrench, adjust and repeat, and repeat again. The advantage gained from this simple bit of continuity cannot be overstated. The accompanying spoke length calculator is robust and extremely well provided for with dimensional data of hundreds of hub and rim types and an editable template for custom or otherwise unlisted hub models. Graphics are excellent. Full and comprehensive instructions as well as automatic updates to the databases and other information are included. All in all an impressive amount of real and useful information as well as a vetting tool that will help achieve accepted, high level, quality control parameters.

Gave same tension no matter what spoke I plucked or how much I tightened. Waste. Of money

to other affordable methods. Documentation a bit sparse. Recommend his video on Youtube.

When compared to my tension meter the readings were off my by up to 100kgf. I dialed a spoke up to 200 kgf is a fixture and it read 46-56kgf. Seems like this tool could lead to damage of wheels as well as possible injury.

It worked OK for my first wheel. For the second wheel, it stopped saving any of the work I was doing. I have to re-enter the spoke count, diameter, length, etc. every time I restart the app.

First, it does need to be a relatively quiet setting. Second, made truing my wheel very even with having spoke tension data. Third, I have an iPhone 7 which has great mics...so not sure how it works on a legacy device or iPad. I might even start building wheels (again) with an app like this. This app is a home run!

After truing my wheel on the Park Tool 2.2 wheel truing stand I wanted to insure I had uniform tension on the spokes. Lacking a spoke tension gauge I checked for an app and tried this one. While the concept made sense, when I was done my wheel was horribly out of true. And when I could hear clear differences in tone the app failed to detect them. Pretty disappointing.

1. Needs a lock on the slider bar. 2. Most Important: Needs some sort of smoothing or averaging algorithm to make results usable