Please, Make Your Own Stir Plate

[weirdboy]

An electrical engineer gettin ripped off on a cheesy electrical circuit....Now that is just sad. What would your professors think!

I have a degree in computer engineering and I bought a stir starter, too.

When I was at school I had access to thousands of dollars in lab equipment and got all the small parts like resistors, caps, op amps, etc. for free. I don't even have a place where I can do electronics work in my house, except on the living room table which sucks for that kind of stuff and my wife would kill me if I damage it.

 

[bernerbrau]

He's software engineer, not electrical.

Minored in EE, actually.

 

[bernerbrau]

Why the consternation? You are getting a lot of good advice here about different options to consider.

I appreciate the advice but I find it funny that almost the entire active membership jumped on this thread.

 

[IrregularPulse]

Minored in EE, actually.

Would you like to put a round in your other foot too? You minored in EE and couldn't build your own stir plate!?

 

[bernerbrau]

Would you like to put a round in your other foot too? You minored in EE and couldn't build your own stir plate!?

Not couldn't. Chose (albeit unwisely) not to. See weirdboy's comment above.

 

[bernerbrau]

LHBS agreed to swap it out at no charge. No refund.

OK, well, I'm going to look for a 12 volt DC adapter and find some better rare earth magnets. If that burns out the controller circuit, I can always build my own replacement circuit.

 

[gunner65]

Best source for rare earth is a dead hard drive.

 

[bernerbrau]

Best source for rare earth is a dead hard drive.

... which I just happen to have!

 

[thargrav]

I went and bought one for the premium price tag. It didn't even work. So I cracked it open. All it was was a computer fan, a magnet, a couple wires, an adjustment knob, an indicator LED, DC input jack, and a PCB with a couple resistors, capacitors, and an op-amp chip. It's basically an exact copy of the PWM circuits I built in EE class back in college. Maybe $20 worth of parts. Anyway the magnet had fallen off the fan. I glued it back, and then discovered that the fan body was warping under pressure and the blades were preventing it from moving. So I snapped off the blades and now it spins freely, except I can't get a good vortex in large amounts (5L) of liquid, and in small amounts (1-2L) of liquid the stir bar keeps getting flung free of the magnet.

So basically I paid $100 for a piece of crap that I could have built myself for cheaper and higher quality. That's what I get for being lazy.

There's a bunch of DIY stir plate threads on this board. If you're planning on getting one, do yourself a favor and put in what little amount of extra time you need, buy the parts, and make it yourself.

I think I'm going to see if the LHBS will take it back. Is it ethical to return hardware once you've modified it?

This is Tom and I own the company that built the "piece of crap" Stir-Plate 2000 you are complaining about. These are low cost units but hardly crap - but they aren't high end products either. If they were then they would cost $300 or more & not the $90 or so you paid for your unit. The PWM circuit is not a common design nor is it the cheap LM317 based design others are building stir plates from. Our PWM design does not stall at low speed like the cheap LM317 based design do. Also, we use high strength neodynium magnets in our design.

It's obvious from what happened that your stir plate failed and all of our products are covered with a 1 year warranty. I would like the opportunity to replace your failed stir plate with the next model up - one of our Stir-Plate 3000 models.

You can contact me through the stir-plate.com web site for a return authorization and I'll ship out a replacement as soon as your defective one comes in.

Thanks, Tom
NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED

 

[bernerbrau]

Wow, Tom. I will certainly take you up on your offer. Hope I didn't offend by speaking out of frustration. Thanks for being so understanding!

 

[thargrav]

Wow, Tom. I will certainly take you up on your offer. Hope I didn't offend by speaking out of frustration. Thanks for being so understanding!

No offense taken - we all get frustrated when we buy something and it does not work as intended.

Thanks for giving me a chance to make this one right. You will be very happy with the Stir-Plate 3000 - it has more than twice the torque of the Stir-Plate 2000 model. When I designed the new model I intended to discontinue the old one but a lot of brewers will never spin a starter larger than 2 liters & orders just kept coming in from our distributor for the old model. We still sell two of the 2000 model for every 3000 model and I don't see this changing any time soon!

Thanks, Tom
www.stir-plate.com

 

[IrregularPulse]

Nice service Tom. Imagine that. A reasonable solution when the manufacturer gets involved. Did you even think to contact him first Brownie when it failed in the first place? Did you know it had a 1 year warranty on it when you bought it? Unless there was paperwork, I'm doubting the shop you bought it from told you.

 

[bernerbrau]

Nice service Tom. Imagine that. A reasonable solution when the manufacturer gets involved. Did you even think to contact him first Brownie when it failed in the first place? Did you know it had a 1 year warranty on it when you bought it? Unless there was paperwork, I'm doubting the shop you bought it from told you.

I did not think to contact the manufacturer. I didn't see any paperwork in the box regarding a warranty or even a contact number, and the LHBS did not tell me anything. The only piece of paper in there was on how to make a starter.

 

[IrregularPulse]

I did not think to contact the manufacturer. I didn't see any paperwork in the box regarding a warranty or even a contact number, and the LHBS did not tell me anything. The only piece of paper in there was on how to make a starter.

Glad to hear you got it resolved. Perhaps the mfg should put their warranty information in with the product to avoid future complaints in these instances.

 

[bernerbrau]

Glad to hear you got it resolved. Perhaps the mfg should put their warranty information in with the product to avoid future complaints in these instances.

Maybe he does, and my LHBS modifies its packages, or maybe I just missed it in my eagerness to test out the hardware. :shrug:

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Nice Tom. Glad you got your issue resolved bernerbrau.

And regarding the "presence" in this thread. C'mon bb, it's not like HBT is THAT big ya know. It's not like we all hide. Some of us actually like to talk about brewing. Some of us actually know how.

Here is to hoping all is well in your new homestead.

 

[bernerbrau]

And regarding the "presence" in this thread. C'mon bb, it's not like HBT is THAT big ya know. It's not like we all hide. Some of us actually like to talk about brewing. Some of us actually know how.

What's with the secrecy? Did that place become another fight club or something?

Here is to hoping all is well in your new homestead.

I'm kegging, brewing outdoors, making lagers, I'm about to go bulk, and I have a respectable propane BBQ for grilling, so yeah, I'd say everything's going as well as it possibly could.

 

[thargrav]

Maybe he does, and my LHBS modifies its packages, or maybe I just missed it in my eagerness to test out the hardware. :shrug:

No, he does not modify the package. We have the warranty posted on the web site and I never considered including it with each stir plate. I'll take care of this with the next revision of both stir plates.

Thanks, Tom
NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED

 

[nostalgia]

Tom Hargrave? Just curious, as I notice those stirplates are sold there with a link to ****.com
-Joe

 

[thargrav]

Yep, I'm the one who destroyed kegkits.com. The business imploded about a year aho and hurt quite a few people, but mostly me. It's still running at about 20% of what it was and maybe one day I will be able to pay the debt this one got me into.

Thanks, Tom

 

[ScubaSteve]

I got an old "real" stirplate on ebay for $30. She fires up just fine. Most often, they don't need much more than a cleaning. Honestly, the stirplates that go for the most money are the ones that also have a hotplate....which you don't need. I used to think I'd need the hotplate for boiling the starter, but seriously.....use your microwave or stove and some fermcap.

 

[thargrav]

I did not think to contact the manufacturer. I didn't see any paperwork in the box regarding a warranty or even a contact number, and the LHBS did not tell me anything. The only piece of paper in there was on how to make a starter.

Derek,

The defective stir plate came in today. Did you put all of the rubber feet on the bottom or where they on there when you bought the stir plate? If you did not put them on the stir plate then you bought someone else’s returned product. All of our stir plates ship with 4 black rubber feet attached & surely not 11 clear ones!

Also, I saw what is wrong with the stir plate as soon as I pulled it out of the box. It’s badly warped and the warped housing transferred into the fan motor and caused the blades to bind. We had a assembly issue when this one was built and I thought we had caught them all but at least one, this one, escaped.

Also, it’s a older unit – the date code is 0610 (Jun 2010) and the serial number is 10464. We started with serial number 10300 which makes this one only the 164’th stir plate we build. For comparison the Stir Plate 3000 we will ship tonight is serial number 10656 and the date code is 1012 – build this past October.

I went ahead and spun up the returned stir plate and it has about the right torque for a Stir Plate 2000, but you need to understand that these were only designed to spin up to a 2 liter starter. You want to spin a 5 liter starter and that’s what we designed the Stir Plate 3000 model to do! Like I posted earlier – you should be very happy with the replacement Stir Plate 3000.

Thanks again, Tom
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[bob1852]

Tom - good customer service here.

Keep it up.

 

[bernerbrau]

I put the feet on. I was trying to distribute the pressure more evenly to compensate for the warping.

Thanks for all your help!

 

[thargrav]

In that case don't get upset with your local homebrew shop. They probably did not know the stir plate was warped.

You should have a shipping confirmation in your email inbox. You should have the replacement by Monday, possibly even Saturday.

Thanks, Tom
NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED

 

[bernerbrau]

Hey Tom, the stir plate came last night. In 5 liters of water the plate keeps throwing the small bar, but I have a 2-inch bar I bought from the LHBS that stays on. I get about 2-3 inches of vortex with this one.

Thanks for all your help!

 

[thargrav]

Hey Tom, the stir plate came last night. In 5 liters of water the plate keeps throwing the small bar, but I have a 2-inch bar I bought from the LHBS that stays on. I get about 2-3 inches of vortex with this one.

Thanks for all your help!

I'm glad you are happy with the stir plate and you aren't the only one who has commented on the larger stir plate throwing the stir bar with very large starters. I'll probably should start packaging longer stir bars with the larger stir plate anyway.

Thanks, Tom
NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED

 

[thargrav]

To clear up warranty issues brought up by this thread, all stir plates produced by www.stir-plate.com will ship with the following label attached to the bottom. I decided on a label because paperwork is too easy to loose.

Stir Plate Product Warranty

This product is covered by a one year workmanship defect warranty. Your stir plate warranty extends one year past your purchase date or 18 months from the manufacture date.

To claim your warranty, ship your defective stir plate along with a note explaining the defect and a copy of your purchase receipt to the address listed on the www.stir-plate.com web site. If returned without a valid receipt, the manufacturing date code will be used to determine warranty status. www.stir-plate.com is not responsible for warranty return freight but will cover freight back to you. Repaired and / or replacement product will be returned as shipped to us. For example, a stir plate shipped in without stir bars will be returned without stir bars.

This warranty does not cover user abuse, damage from incorrect power supply or unreasonable product expectations. For example, expecting a SP-2000 to spin a 5 liter starter as well as a SP-3000 spins a 5 liter starter.


Thanks, Tom
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[sudbuster]

Minored in EE, actually.

I'm retired dairyman. $24 and scrap: 50ml to 5 gal.

 

[thargrav]

Impressive build and quite a wirlpool, congratulations.

Tom
NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED