Not being a coffee drinker [Hunter Scott] wanted a way to make tea while lurking in his workshop. Well it’s not exactly rocket science, as all you need is water at the right temperature and a vessel in which the tea can be steeped. But we do commend him on not only building a nice little hot plate enclosure, but rolling a magnetic stirrer into the other side of the box.
You heard us right, the stirrer is not combined with the plate, but resides on the underside of the same PSU enclosure. The plate itself is from a unit he bought at the store and cannibalized. The light switch dimmer lets him adjust the heat it puts out. When not hot, he can flip it over and use the stir plate. This consists of a hard drive magnet attached to a PC fan. For the stirrer itself he encased a neodymium magnet in some thermoplastic. The magnetic combination works well together with a demonstration which shows it stirring water through the base of a tea-cup.
And then you burn your desk when switching over from boiling your tea to stirring it:-)
“When not hot, he can flip it over and use the stir plate.”
I think the hack presupposes common sense.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that thought that it didn’t seem that practical. A for creation in general, though.
Like the common sense that tells us that unless the tea is hot there’s no point in stirring it?
No, like the common sense that tells you that if the hot plate is hot, you’ll damage your table if you put it down on that surface. I suppose this could be fixed pretty easily by attaching some posts to hold the box above the table.
Yeah, but this device isn’t meant to make water hot for your tea. It’s meant to KEEP it hot after you boiled it, added tea and sugar and stirred it.
Sure, if you are silly enough to use it on combustible furnature. Metal topped shop benches are where it’s at.
why would he want the stirrer on the other side, usually you combine these too so you can hot stir cold stir, and heat without stirring …
I like this suggestion. Those neodymium magnets have enough T (or B) to operate at the distance through the hot plate and the bottom of a mug plus what ever clearances are needed for mounting, rotation, etc.
I pity the poor fool who doesn’t eat my breakfast products!
Having hot plates combined with stirrers is nothing new, look in any university chem lab; there’s really no other way to mix adequately while stirring… it looks novel but it solves a problem that doesn’t exist
“Turns out real magnetic stirrers for lab use are hundreds of dollars.”
You can find them fairly cheap on eBay. Might need some cleaning, but other than that, perfectly functional
They might be cheap, but you never certain what they have been through, trust me, i worked in a lab and all kinds of nasties were spilled on these things…
Mr Tea’s hand is on the wrong side
Pretty sweet! If this can do 1-2 gallons of milk and keep it at ~80 degrees….you can use this to make cheeses!
awesome posting.