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| Fungi: Growing Edible Medicinal & Magic Mushrooms Ask and answer questions and share experiences related to mushrooms. |
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06-22-09, 12:15
| #1 (permalink) |
| Mycophiliac  Join Date: Aug 1972
Posts: 46
 | Free Stir Bar TEK
Once again not sure how to put the pics in my post so they will be at the end. You need (I happened to have all the supplies laying around my house) 1 old hard drive 1 old phone charger 1 old computer fan 1 tube you don't mind hacking to bits Double sided tape Electricians tape Take apart the old hard drive and salvage the magnets from it. Mine wouldn't come off the metal guard so I took the whole thing and taped it to my fan. Use double sided tape and tape the magnet to the center of your comp fan. Strip the wiring form the fan and the phone charge and connect negative and positive. I twisted together and then taped with electricians tape. Cut the tub so that the comp fan fits inside and has a 1/2 inch to inch (you will have to play around with this to get the best distance for your fan speed and magnet strength. Free stir bar if you have and old computer and power supply laying around. My phone charger is 120V to 9amp converter and seems to work perfect, but you can always wire in a voltage controller in between the fan and charger to control the speed! I added some more pics, you can see the setup without the lid and the hard drive I destroyed to get the magnet out. I used metal pieces of the hard drive for stir bars in the LC jar, including the round thing that looks and spins like a top in the jar when the stir bar is on! One jar apparently has aluminum screw so it doesn't work, but I guess that one will be my control. |
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06-22-09, 12:25
| #2 (permalink) |
| Technopagan  Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 1,070
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This looks really cool, but could be a bit more detailed on what exactly your doing... Care to share more?
__________________ Wine is fine, but whiskey's quicker - Suicide is slow with liqueur Take a bottle, drown your sorrows - Then it floods away tomorrows |
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06-22-09, 12:35
| #3 (permalink) |
| Code Demon  Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 728
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big_dreams: Dude! You fuckin rule man!! Mega rep for this one man. This is exactly the type of tek I've been looking for!!!  LotRev: He's got a magnet from his HD taped onto his CPU fan. He then has supplied his fan with power from an AC adapter to his cell phone. Turn it on and your magnet is spinning on a fan. This is constantly rotating the magnetic field which would rotate any magnets nearby. If you put a teflon-coated magnetic stirbar into a basic/acidic solution it would sink to the bottom and wouldn't melt/contam. You then place your container with the stirbar/solution on top of your homemade contraption, turn it on, and watch as the magnetic field takes your stirbar in rapid circles, effectively mixing your solution. Normally it's done by an expensive stirring hotplate, but this is a cheap work-around that would certainly get the job done. No more tedious shaking and becoming emulsion prone! Archive material! Here's a pic of what it looks like happening in clear solution.
__________________ Programmer + Psychonaut = Frequency |
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06-22-09, 12:42
| #4 (permalink) | |
| Technopagan Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 1,070
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I understand the idea...just wanted some more pictures and details so it will be archived...I have yet to see a stir plate tek. Like... Quote:
large flasks and jars?
__________________ Wine is fine, but whiskey's quicker - Suicide is slow with liqueur Take a bottle, drown your sorrows - Then it floods away tomorrows | |
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06-22-09, 12:49
| #5 (permalink) |
| Mycophiliac Join Date: Aug 1972
Posts: 46
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I edited the post and added a few more pics, hope this is helpful to everyone. My power supply isn't strong enough to get a vortex in the water, but I think it will do the job just fine since and agitation should be a big help!
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06-22-09, 12:56
| #6 (permalink) | |
| Technopagan Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 1,070
| Quote:
 That is a great idea and technique, did you come up with this yourself? I was also going to mention, like you did, that anything magnetic should work inside the jar, not just the fancy stirrers. Seems like a beautiful LC mixer for cheap...might even work well to put sharp pieces of metal in the bottom to slice up the mycelium as it swirls.
__________________ Wine is fine, but whiskey's quicker - Suicide is slow with liqueur Take a bottle, drown your sorrows - Then it floods away tomorrows | |
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06-22-09, 13:06
| #9 (permalink) |
| Maniacal Laughter Mwahaa!  Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 584
| great work dude my attempts wore less than satisfactory. it may have been down to me duck taping my magnet to my computer fan instead of gluing but who cares. now a days i just eltt it grow out shake the crap out of it then suck as many syringes that i can and start a second if i need more.
__________________ who would win between a monkey and a dog? |
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06-23-09, 06:19
| #11 (permalink) |
| and sniff  Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 310
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I couldn't get it to work. I had trouble getting the magnets exactly centered on the fan. If they are the least bit off center, the thing shakes like crazy when you turn on the fan. With all the vibration, jars won't stay put on top of it. Reminds me of a tire that needs balancing, it's not a smooth ride. The other problem I had was finding a way to get the fan speed adjusted. Too fast and the stir bar just sits there not turning. Too slow, well, I couldn't get it to go too slow, just stopped. Went to radio shack to see if they had something to adjust the speed. I was looking for something like a volume control to adjust speed of fan. Found out they don't know anything about the parts they sell. Bought a handful of potentiometers to try to find one that would be useful for fan speed adjustment. None of them worked as hoped. Instead of a smooth range of speed when turning the knob, I only got on or off. Took all the pots back to Radio Shack. They refunded the money so I'm only out the time spent experimenting. Threw all the parts in a plastic shopping bag and I'll try again when I've got more patience or better info. |
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06-23-09, 09:37
| #12 (permalink) | |
| Mycophiliac Join Date: Aug 1972
Posts: 46
| Quote:
Yeah, I was thinking of a fan controller as your speed controller. Home Depot or Lowes should have something that works in the electrical section, but as for me my converter lowers the speed so much that I think its a little slow, but if I have read correctly this is for agitation of the water and if you get it moving nicely it will do the job. Do you need the spinning vortex? | |
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06-23-09, 14:34
| #14 (permalink) |
| El Jardinero  Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 2,041
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Low voltage - DC Should easily be controlled by a potentiometer for infinite variability of fan speed control.  The volume knob from an electric guitar works great.
__________________ "...we'd like to help you learn to help yourself..." |
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06-23-09, 15:05
| #15 (permalink) |
| Shaman  Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 584
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are you setting the jar on your stir plate while its already on? took me a while to figure out you need to set the jar on before you turn it on, so it magnetizes. otherwise, its already spinning and cant catch up. you shouldnt need a speed controller. lemme know if this helps. o, also, 12v is the correct type of plug you should be using...
__________________ A mans life are what his thoughts make of it  |
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