Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Emerging amateur with a question about hotplates.

SFL - 23-11-2010 at 00:52

Hello, everyone. I'm happy to be a member here.

I only start this topic after searching online and using the search function here until I gave up. I just would like to know peoples' opinions on when to buy a digital hotplate/stirrer. In general, will the 1-10 dial be accurate enough for the basic experiments I'll be doing, or would the extra money be a good investment?

Thank you for your thoughts.

Sandmeyer - 23-11-2010 at 01:21

Welcome! :D

For most org. synthesis purposes, you don't need a stirrer, a heat source (and sometimes "boiling chips") is enough. Do you mean when or do you mean where to buy a stirrer/hotplate? When -- only you can tell, where -- obvious places to look is e-bay kind of places, and you can also build one yourself, UTFG.

Magpie - 23-11-2010 at 09:36

Unless you have some purpose in mind requiring exact repeatability of the setting the dial type should be plenty adequate.

SFL - 23-11-2010 at 13:16

Thank you both!