Building My Own Yeast Stirplate Device

[Fourstar]

yes, i got 4 rare earth magnets, quite powerful ones and was, if anything, regretful of not getting the extremely powerful ones. also, try and distance the magnets to suit your stirbar.
Mike

Yeah its a pain, i might have a play tonight with some blu tak and a paddle pop stick to adjust the distance of the magnets... if all else fails, ill wait for my REM from dealextreme. In a 1L flask im using the 30mmx6mm stirbar from grainandgrape. That side should be fine right?

 

[~MikE]

Yeah its a pain, i might have a play tonight with some blu tak and a paddle pop stick to adjust the distance of the magnets... if all else fails, ill wait for my REM from dealextreme. In a 1L flask im using the 30mmx6mm stirbar from grainandgrape. That side should be fine right?

it'll work fine, but i went out and got a 70 or 80mm stirbar.

 

[gava]

this post has caught my eye and I did some looking around at the stir-plates.. one question off the bat..
I see everyone using those glass lab bottles are theses required? if so why?

 

[razz]

They're made of borosilicate glass, so they can go on the stove top or a water bath. Graduations on the side make it easy to measure volumes. Flat bottoms are ideal for stirbars. Need I go on?

 

[gava]

They're made of borosilicate glass, so they can go on the stove top or a water bath. Graduations on the side make it easy to measure volumes. Flat bottoms are ideal for stirbars. Need I go on?

please

 

[AndrewQLD]

this post has caught my eye and I did some looking around at the stir-plates.. one question off the bat..
I see everyone using those glass lab bottles are theses required? if so why?

Not really Gava, although for larger volume starters it's easier, given that the flasks have a flat bottom.
Here's a pic of my Coopers Pale Ale at the second step up stage in a chicken tonight jar, I use a small (2.5cm) stir bar in this.



Andrew

 

[Crusty]

Anyone on here wish to sell me one of these magnetic stir plates. I am looking at using a 2 litre or maybe a 5 litre flask.
Don't tell me to build my own, I can't build diddly squat.
Cheers,
Crusty

 

[pdilley]

Anyone on here wish to sell me one of these magnetic stir plates. I am looking at using a 2 litre or maybe a 5 litre flask.
Don't tell me to build my own, I can't build diddly squat.
Cheers,
Crusty

Crusty,

Hopefully you'll get one of the friendlier members to build one out for you. Or you can take it down to your local TAFE equivalent or uni or any school that teaches electronics and swing a deal with the instructor to let a student build one out for you for less cost. Try all sorts of avenues!

With AC it is:
AC fan -> wired to -> Solid State AC Motor Controller -> wired to -> a Plug
... no circuits to build and you can get a sparky to do it for you for some homebrew in exchange

 

[pdilley]

Well I just got my brand new AC fan for $9, beats Jaycar pricing any day.

Looks like I'm going the AC route with mine now.

FAN Specs for the curious (removed the 60Hz specs and listing only the 50Hz values):
Size - 120mm x 120mm x 38mm (4.72" x 4.72" x 1.5")
Frame - Aluminum Die-cast (Black)
Motor - Shaded Pole Induction Motor
Motor Protection - Impedance
Rating - Industrial Rated
Reliability Rating - 80,000 Hours Continuous Duty
Fan / Impeller - Glass Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastic - 5 Blade Impeller - Standard Pitch
Venturi - Aluminum Alloy
Rated Voltage - 240 Volt AC
Power Connector 2 Pin
Bearing Type - 2 Precision Ball Bearings
Freq - 50/60 Hz
Amp Draw - 0.10 Amps
Power Consumption - 7.0 Watts
Speed 2,850 RPM
Airflow - 62 cfm
Noise - 26 dBA
Weight - 150 grams (1.2 lbs)
Temp. Range - -20C to +80C


When time permits I'll look into speed controller options and decide upon a final one. Now my life is much much simpler. Just wire the fan to the controller which is wired to a plug then plugged into the wall. End of project

Or if I find one of those plug in the wall wart style controllers its simply Wire fan to a plug, plug the fan into the controller which is plugged into the wall. End of project.

 

[gibbocore]

Those jayar motor controllers are a bit pricey.

 

[SJW]

Anyone on here wish to sell me one of these magnetic stir plates. I am looking at using a 2 litre or maybe a 5 litre flask.
Don't tell me to build my own, I can't build diddly squat.
Cheers,
Crusty

Just build you own
Really mate it is dead simple. PM and I can step u through the process in a simple form if u like.

Steve

 

[Sammus]

I run a 240V AC fan. I just boughta ceiling fan speed controller. Works a treat. I think I copied that idea of batz or tony or something... cant remember who, seemed like a good idea, and my 12V didnt have the balls to stir a 5L flask, so I went the AC route.

 

[braufrau]

this post has caught my eye and I did some looking around at the stir-plates.. one question off the bat..
I see everyone using those glass lab bottles are theses required? if so why?

I use a 2l polycarbonate bottle. Although those are pricey too, and I melted one in a blond moment. But I have used a 2l apple juice bottle but the prob. with that is you can't pour boiling water into it to sanitise because the bottom cracks off!

 

[pdilley]

my 12V didnt have the balls to stir a 5L flask, so I went the AC route.

Yep, you can't beat AC over DC for torquing through the big stirs! All my fan projects and build my own lab gear used AC fans/motors before I moved back to Oz. I almost gave up on AC when I saw what Jaycar wanted to charge for them. Then the price of controllers and you'd want to give up on AC completely. Thanks to the internet and eBay you can hook up with large volume sellers all over the world. You don't mind paying an Australian company 100% markup to cover costs then profit margins. But when I see 900% to 1000% markups I throw a gasket (Biggest laugh yet = when stores try to explain its all because of cost of shipping out here-- yeah and my full retail price + full retail shiping price from oversease is less than half what you are asking or up to 1/9th the cost -- vote with my wallet). When I first moved back I needed 6 screws, metric, rather small and couldn't find them at Bunnings. A local supplier in Melbourne wanted to charge me $16 for 6 of them and then $14 to post it to the next suburb over because they only opened 9am-4:30pm M-F and I worked in the city centre. They didn't accept cash, cheque, and wanted me to do a bank transfer ... Needless to say for $20 I bought a 3,200 piece hardware set both in metric an standard from the States and had it mailed over. Now I get my metric screws, over 3,100 more goodies and its own carrying case/toolbox Didn't stop there, bought an entire forstner bit set for the price of one single bit over here.

But $9 for an AC fan isn't bad at all. If I don't get any joy from local Aussie resellers on the controller I'll order the solid state 50/60Hz 230V controller from the states for $15 from overseas and just have it ship it out over here.

Industrial Controllers are Inverter>PWM jobs with microprocessor controller algorithms to shift F/V accordingly. But a fan controller will do the job fine.

In the mail (1/5th to 1/9th the cost locally): Power Supplies, 2 digital scales, refractometer, books (*huge* savings ordering these through Amazon than local shops) and more tools
When your worst case of order cost at retailer in US$ + Shipping to get it to Oz = less than 50% of buying it locally you know you are on to a good thing!
FWIW--Some electronics, books, quality tools, USA orders found best, everything else or gear that has made in china sticker when going through Myers or Jaycar here, HK sellers seem best.

 

[pdilley]

AC FAN ARRIVED!

Not bad, 2 days to get it to my door. Ships from Queensland and cost me $9 so thats not a long time to wait or a bad price to pay. All the overseas gear should be another week before arriving.

One thing you notice is a nice very wide fat hub to work with and attach a nice high density foam disc to in order to get the magnets far away from the fan so it doesn't have a strong magnetic field pulling against the fan motor trying to spin the fan. We want the magnets up close to the stir bar, not down next to the fan.


Other nice goodies is a fan grill, although not expecting to make use of that. Also included is a plug adapter so you can firmly snap on the cabling without resorting to soldering any connections. Not sure if I'll make use of this until I measure the gauge of the wiring but I still might for the convenience sake. If your fan burns out you just unplug, unscrew the fan, screw in the replacement and plug right back in with no soldering or tools per se to do the job.



Now all that is needed to complete the job is a triac based fan controller with suitable RFI filtering so my AM radio doesn't go nuts and we are set once a power cord and plug are wired up to the other side of the triac switch. (Note: Fan Controller or Shaded Pole Motor controller Triac switch -- *not* Light Dimmer switch).


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[pdilley]

Building Posts continue in this thread
Final Working You Tube video in this thread

Cheers,
Brewer Pete