DIY Magnetic Stir Plate: In Progress

A work in progress: a magnetic stir plate for building up yeast starters.



First thing is to get a 12 volt adapter and hook it up to a rocker switch. This gives you on/off. Yay, power!

Next you wire up a rheostat to a used hard drive fan and your rocker switch. This allows you to adjust the speed of the fan. Wheeeee!

Now, take a hard drive rare earth magnet and affix it to the spinning side of the fan. Test mount the parts in an enclosure, put the magnetic stir bar in a flask and voila! It magnetically stirs your solution.
See the whirlpool funnel?

Needs a little refinement, but you get the idea.  I'll do a more complete post later.

That Sinking Feeling

I got that panicked call from one of the Nodlings during the football game. (Why always during the game?) Daddy, daddy, the kitchen sink is flooding! 

I went upstairs and sure enough we're wading through a couple of gallons of water on the floor. Warm water. Hm. Not the dishwasher. We rescued most of the under the sink supplies and mopped out the cabinet. I determined it wasn't one of those spraying geyser leaks which is a good thing. It only leaks when you turn on the water. Must be the hose or fitting.

I turned off the water and then took stuff apart. Due to the angle, this involved crawling into the cabinet and trying to swing a wrench with my elbow jammed against my nose while reaching around the garbage disposal. Not fun. I'm going to have bruises in strange places. Now I have sore ribs and a neck cramp.

I figured if it was a leaking hose, I could duct tape it until I could get a replacement. The hardware store was closed, but I did find (clear - not silver!) duct tape at the drug store. I ended up not being able to separate the last hose fitting so as to be able to do my triage. Fail!

I put everything back together again and ran some water through the lines -- and now it doesn't leak. This bothers me more than if I hadn't fixed it. I didn't conclusively find the source of the leak; I didn't "do" anything particular to fix it. I took it apart, yanked on a few parts, and put it back together again. I have a sinking feeling this isn't the last we'll see of this problem.

In the meantime, I put a drip pan under the sink and the paper towels and supplies somewhere else. Now I know why plumbers get paid a fortune: they are huge guys with strong hands and bad overalls doing a dirty job. How would a huge guy even fit under the sink?!

Threw A Brick

Laying brick is hard. Oh, there are any number of videos on YouTube that will show you just how easy brick laying is, and Lowe's wants you to believe that the DIY brick project is definitely within your skill set. But let's face it, if it was that easy, we wouldn't have brick masons.


There really is such a thing as ACME Brick. Sounds cliche, but there it is. My bricks look nothing like this one, but I still thought it was cool. My version of the brick is throwing up an airball while playing basketball, not this grunt work. Mine is a simple job of laying pavers in a small, nearly rectangular area. Should be easy, yes? No!

My mistake was in 1) digging too deep, 2) not measuring depth with a string/snap line, and 3) not back filling in with enough rock base and sand to bring it up to grade. Now my bricks are lower than the grass area around it -- not good. There is nothing like preparation for a job to make it go right, and this is nothing like it.

Sigh. I'll have to dig 'em up again and try again. It's because I have nothing else to do, right?