Good luck.

How high a temperature can those heating coils you speak of reach?

I was very happy with the way mine performed till I spilled oil and burned out my heating element. I used nichrome around a glazed ceramic pot and it worked great reaching really high temperatures quickly and smoothly.

I used an old mini crockpot(popperie burner) and wrapped nichrome wire from an old hair dryer around the outside and insulated it with Cal-coat. Hooked the lead wires to a dimmer switch and it worked great until oil spilled and carbonized shorting out the terminals. So I rebuilt and everything was going fine but I was testing it with water and like a dumbass let it go dry at which point it broke the ceramic.

I had it past 420 degrees F which my thermometer kicked out on but before it shorted out it was reliable and working great.

I have a photo somewhere Ill look for it.

I've got some oil now and I plan to test this while refluxing some stuff tomorrow.

Close to the moment I plugged in the heater obvious circulation was going on in the oil. I am going to be using a 1 L RBF for the reflux tomorrow, and the heater is close, possibly touching the flask, think that will cause any problem?

Reasonably strong electric motors are available at radio shack for a few bucks...

How do you guys think a washing machine motor would do as an overhead stirrer for my 22L?

How do you guys think a washing machine motor would do as an overhead stirrer for my 22L?

Power wise, might it be a bit over kill? How fast does it spin?

I've always thought maybe a weed eater motor (electric, maybe gas.. though that sounds annoying) would do well and also it might be more easily adaptable for stirring large amounts.

Also my stupid little heating coil didn't work on the day I needed it too, but had many times before. I'll get another one sometime I guess.

Ok yall I started working on building myself a new one today.

Watson.fawkes and I have been discussing creating some instructables for Science madness to help folks learn to make there own gear and get the good word of chemistry out to the public so I took alot of pictures that I hope to be able to add with a writeup and convert to a PDF sometime down the line.

The crap that goes into making it. A hair dryer heating element and a mini crockpot.


Undo this screw.


Rip these thin little baby wires off.


And kick it up a notch....BAM!!!!!!!!


Cal-coat basicly just clay and little fiberglass balls mixed.


The bottom after replacing outer metal.


Ill get more pictures as I get them in. For now I have to let the Cal-Coat dry for a few days or atlest overnight and turn the heat on low so that ot can evaporate the last little bits.

Quote

How do you guys think a washing machine motor would do as an overhead stirrer for my 22L?

Power wise, might it be a bit over kill? How fast does it spin?

I've always thought maybe a weed eater motor (electric, maybe gas.. though that sounds annoying) would do well and also it might be more easily adaptable for stirring large amounts.

Also my stupid little heating coil didn't work on the day I needed it too, but had many times before. I'll get another one sometime I guess.

Vesp you may want to consider not using that little heating coil and seeing what you can find in the way of water heater elements. These are made for immusion heating and would get that baby cooking quick.

They get pretty hot. They need to produce enough heat to supply your whole house with hot water on a constant basis. The only thing that keeps it in check is the thermostat on the water heater. Trust me Im a plumber . Think about it those little things have to heat up that large water heater tank and theres normaly only two of them. Imagine what would happen in the confines of oil without restrictions on its output. Use a dimmer switch to be on the safe side.

Something that I was thinking could be modifyed as they have aluminum bodys is a deep fryer. I am really pissed at my self because I tossed one about 4 months before wanting to build the oilbath and all I keep thinking of is if only I had that thing. Deep fryers heat and they do it quick!!!!. They also have a temperature control built on it. Some of the higher end models allow you to pick a specific temperature. There body is thin Al so no magnetic things to get in the way. It will look like some kind of professional unit when complete also.

  God Im so pissed just talking about it I want that lil fucker back. It would have been perfect I tell you PERFECT!

Today I tryed a little something because it was there. There are immusion heaters for fish tanks that are basicly a nichrome coil inside of a test tube. I placed this in the oilbath to see what kind of temperatures it reached but the internal bimetal thermostate kept kicking out keeping the temperature a little over 100 degrees.

Naturaly I can't leave well enough alone so I opened it up and tricked out the thermostate with some Al foil before closing it back up and retesting it.

Well sure enough a half an hour later the temperature reads 350F near the coil but around 250-275F on the other side of the bath. These would work great for an oil bath as long as you used two of them to assure even heating. Just though I would throw another option out there because I indeed must experiment with this a bit more.

Those glass aquarium heaters qould be used with a twist, as they are glass, they could be placed DIRECTLY in to the reaction micrture to be heated.

I have actually thought about doing something similiar to that. I think it would be cool to melt some glass tubing into a spiral that fits in 24/40 glassware, and have NiCr wire in it, and have it close off with a stopper the right size.

It isn't the best idea, and it has its hazards do doubt, but it might make heating a lot easier in some situations, especially when you need it to get pretty hot. A significant problem would be the high likely hood of the glass tubing breaking.


If one could create something similiar to a compact fluorescent light that would fit into a 24/40 joint, and let off UV rays, I'd be pretty excited. That would be great for things like radical chlorination, etc.