Please, Make Your Own Stir Plate

[thargrav]

Wow, Tom. I will certainly take you up on your offer. Hope I didn't offend by speaking out of frustration. Thanks for being so understanding!

No offense taken - we all get frustrated when we buy something and it does not work as intended.

Thanks for giving me a chance to make this one right. You will be very happy with the Stir-Plate 3000 - it has more than twice the torque of the Stir-Plate 2000 model. When I designed the new model I intended to discontinue the old one but a lot of brewers will never spin a starter larger than 2 liters & orders just kept coming in from our distributor for the old model. We still sell two of the 2000 model for every 3000 model and I don't see this changing any time soon!

Thanks, Tom
www.stir-plate.com

 

[IrregularPulse]

Nice service Tom. Imagine that. A reasonable solution when the manufacturer gets involved. Did you even think to contact him first Brownie when it failed in the first place? Did you know it had a 1 year warranty on it when you bought it? Unless there was paperwork, I'm doubting the shop you bought it from told you.

 

[bernerbrau]

Nice service Tom. Imagine that. A reasonable solution when the manufacturer gets involved. Did you even think to contact him first Brownie when it failed in the first place? Did you know it had a 1 year warranty on it when you bought it? Unless there was paperwork, I'm doubting the shop you bought it from told you.

I did not think to contact the manufacturer. I didn't see any paperwork in the box regarding a warranty or even a contact number, and the LHBS did not tell me anything. The only piece of paper in there was on how to make a starter.

 

[IrregularPulse]

I did not think to contact the manufacturer. I didn't see any paperwork in the box regarding a warranty or even a contact number, and the LHBS did not tell me anything. The only piece of paper in there was on how to make a starter.

Glad to hear you got it resolved. Perhaps the mfg should put their warranty information in with the product to avoid future complaints in these instances.

 

[bernerbrau]

Glad to hear you got it resolved. Perhaps the mfg should put their warranty information in with the product to avoid future complaints in these instances.

Maybe he does, and my LHBS modifies its packages, or maybe I just missed it in my eagerness to test out the hardware. :shrug:

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Nice Tom. Glad you got your issue resolved bernerbrau.

And regarding the "presence" in this thread. C'mon bb, it's not like HBT is THAT big ya know. It's not like we all hide. Some of us actually like to talk about brewing. Some of us actually know how.

Here is to hoping all is well in your new homestead.

 

[bernerbrau]

And regarding the "presence" in this thread. C'mon bb, it's not like HBT is THAT big ya know. It's not like we all hide. Some of us actually like to talk about brewing. Some of us actually know how.

What's with the secrecy? Did that place become another fight club or something?

Here is to hoping all is well in your new homestead.

I'm kegging, brewing outdoors, making lagers, I'm about to go bulk, and I have a respectable propane BBQ for grilling, so yeah, I'd say everything's going as well as it possibly could.

 

[thargrav]

Maybe he does, and my LHBS modifies its packages, or maybe I just missed it in my eagerness to test out the hardware. :shrug:

No, he does not modify the package. We have the warranty posted on the web site and I never considered including it with each stir plate. I'll take care of this with the next revision of both stir plates.

Thanks, Tom
NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED

 

[nostalgia]

Tom Hargrave? Just curious, as I notice those stirplates are sold there with a link to ****.com
-Joe

 

[thargrav]

Yep, I'm the one who destroyed kegkits.com. The business imploded about a year aho and hurt quite a few people, but mostly me. It's still running at about 20% of what it was and maybe one day I will be able to pay the debt this one got me into.

Thanks, Tom

 

[ScubaSteve]

I got an old "real" stirplate on ebay for $30. She fires up just fine. Most often, they don't need much more than a cleaning. Honestly, the stirplates that go for the most money are the ones that also have a hotplate....which you don't need. I used to think I'd need the hotplate for boiling the starter, but seriously.....use your microwave or stove and some fermcap.

 

[thargrav]

I did not think to contact the manufacturer. I didn't see any paperwork in the box regarding a warranty or even a contact number, and the LHBS did not tell me anything. The only piece of paper in there was on how to make a starter.

Derek,

The defective stir plate came in today. Did you put all of the rubber feet on the bottom or where they on there when you bought the stir plate? If you did not put them on the stir plate then you bought someone else’s returned product. All of our stir plates ship with 4 black rubber feet attached & surely not 11 clear ones!

Also, I saw what is wrong with the stir plate as soon as I pulled it out of the box. It’s badly warped and the warped housing transferred into the fan motor and caused the blades to bind. We had a assembly issue when this one was built and I thought we had caught them all but at least one, this one, escaped.

Also, it’s a older unit – the date code is 0610 (Jun 2010) and the serial number is 10464. We started with serial number 10300 which makes this one only the 164’th stir plate we build. For comparison the Stir Plate 3000 we will ship tonight is serial number 10656 and the date code is 1012 – build this past October.

I went ahead and spun up the returned stir plate and it has about the right torque for a Stir Plate 2000, but you need to understand that these were only designed to spin up to a 2 liter starter. You want to spin a 5 liter starter and that’s what we designed the Stir Plate 3000 model to do! Like I posted earlier – you should be very happy with the replacement Stir Plate 3000.

Thanks again, Tom
NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED

 

[bob1852]

Tom - good customer service here.

Keep it up.

 

[bernerbrau]

I put the feet on. I was trying to distribute the pressure more evenly to compensate for the warping.

Thanks for all your help!

 

[thargrav]

In that case don't get upset with your local homebrew shop. They probably did not know the stir plate was warped.

You should have a shipping confirmation in your email inbox. You should have the replacement by Monday, possibly even Saturday.

Thanks, Tom
NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED

 

[bernerbrau]

Hey Tom, the stir plate came last night. In 5 liters of water the plate keeps throwing the small bar, but I have a 2-inch bar I bought from the LHBS that stays on. I get about 2-3 inches of vortex with this one.

Thanks for all your help!

 

[thargrav]

Hey Tom, the stir plate came last night. In 5 liters of water the plate keeps throwing the small bar, but I have a 2-inch bar I bought from the LHBS that stays on. I get about 2-3 inches of vortex with this one.

Thanks for all your help!

I'm glad you are happy with the stir plate and you aren't the only one who has commented on the larger stir plate throwing the stir bar with very large starters. I'll probably should start packaging longer stir bars with the larger stir plate anyway.

Thanks, Tom
NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED

 

[thargrav]

To clear up warranty issues brought up by this thread, all stir plates produced by www.stir-plate.com will ship with the following label attached to the bottom. I decided on a label because paperwork is too easy to loose.

Stir Plate Product Warranty

This product is covered by a one year workmanship defect warranty. Your stir plate warranty extends one year past your purchase date or 18 months from the manufacture date.

To claim your warranty, ship your defective stir plate along with a note explaining the defect and a copy of your purchase receipt to the address listed on the www.stir-plate.com web site. If returned without a valid receipt, the manufacturing date code will be used to determine warranty status. www.stir-plate.com is not responsible for warranty return freight but will cover freight back to you. Repaired and / or replacement product will be returned as shipped to us. For example, a stir plate shipped in without stir bars will be returned without stir bars.

This warranty does not cover user abuse, damage from incorrect power supply or unreasonable product expectations. For example, expecting a SP-2000 to spin a 5 liter starter as well as a SP-3000 spins a 5 liter starter.


Thanks, Tom
NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED

 

[sudbuster]

Minored in EE, actually.

I'm retired dairyman. $24 and scrap: 50ml to 5 gal.

 

[thargrav]

Impressive build and quite a wirlpool, congratulations.

Tom
NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED

 

[HBHoss]

Impressive build and quite a wirlpool, congratulations.

Tom
www.stir-plate.com

Tom,
You should add your name to the Vendor List on the Main page of this site. Great customer service deserves exposure.

 

[thargrav]

To clear up warranty issues brought up by this thread, all stir plates produced by www.stir-plate.com will ship with the following label attached to the bottom. I decided on a label because paperwork is too easy to loose.

Stir Plate Product Warranty

This product is covered by a one year workmanship defect warranty. Your stir plate warranty extends one year past your purchase date or 18 months from the manufacture date.

To claim your warranty, ship your defective stir plate along with a note explaining the defect and a copy of your purchase receipt to the address listed on the NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED web site. If returned without a valid receipt, the manufacturing date code will be used to determine warranty status. NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED is not responsible for warranty return freight but will cover freight back to you. Repaired and / or replacement product will be returned as shipped to us. For example, a stir plate shipped in without stir bars will be returned without stir bars.

This warranty does not cover user abuse, damage from incorrect power supply or unreasonable product expectations. For example, expecting a SP-2000 to spin a 5 liter starter as well as a SP-3000 spins a 5 liter starter.


Thanks, Tom
NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED
As of this month all of our stir plates ship with a 1" stir bar and a 1-5/8" stir bar. We did some testing and discovered that the shorter stir bar did best with smaller 1 liter or less starter and the longer stir bar did best for 2 liters and above. We also tried a 2" stir bar and saw no diffetence between the 1-5/8" and 2" stir bars. There are quite a few of our stir plates in homebrew shops so don't expect these stir plates to instantly appear in you local homebrew shop.

Thanks, Tom
NON VENDOR LINK REMOVED

 

[thargrav]

You can read a independent review of the Stir Plate 3000 atNON VENDOR LINK REMOVED

 

[rycov]

I think I'm going to see if the LHBS will take it back. Is it ethical to return hardware once you've modified it?

is it ethical for them to sell you a piece of **** that doesn't work?

 

[thargrav]

I suggest you read the entire thread instead of reacting to the first few posts.

 

[JoeyChopps]

Thanks for the last post I went ahead and read the whole post and laughed my ass off. And btw I just built my first stir plate and know how to use it thanks to this site

 

[rycov]

i suggest that i don't. so we're even. it was a question and i replied. i have no regrets

 

[rycov]

nice. just read the post... i got owned.