Open Source Stir Plate

Greetings,

So, I've been a long time kitchen-5-gallon batch brewer but I've recently gotten a bit more serious and started to scale up my "operation" with Keg brewing etc... you know how it goes....

I'm interested in propagating my own yeast using stir plates and didn't quite find what I was looking for in the DIY category when I looked at what was available on the internet. Being the nut job that I am I decided to design a scratch built system that all of the parts were easily sourceable from a minimum number of suppliers and the the suppliers could be easly access by the public.

I thought I would throw the design / work in progress out there to see what you all think.....

What I have come up with is a stir plate that the parts come from:

Radioshack
Home Depot or Lowes
K&J Magnetics
A small number of custom parts that can be produced by small laser cutters.

The design is pretty solid and I have a few more tweaks and documentation to write and then I will publish the design as an open source hardware project.

Here is a link to a test video I shot this morning:

[ame="http://youtu.be/9Lnx09dLb5Q"]http://youtu.be/9Lnx09dLb5Q[/ame]

Here is a link to the project web page in it's develpoment state. This is a work in progress and it is not yet "live" - just a preview. Please note, I am not selling any parts either.

http://www.factengineering.com/labstirrer.php

Hopefully this will all be finished in another 2-3 weeks and you can start using this information.


Thoughts?

Thanks,

-Cary

I built mine entirely from an old computer tower, with the exception of the nuts, bolts, a switch, and potentiometer. It cost me less than $10.00 and works awesome! It looks pretty cool too!

My version of a DIY stirplate:

I do appreciate the ultra low cost hacked versions, however I wanted to make something that looked manufactured as I plan on using several in my brew setups as well as in my legitimate business.

Wow that things got some power! Mine just makes a little skinny tornado...