Magnetic Stirrer: Interior

Of late, the magnetic stirrer mixing my morning cocoa occasionally doesn’t start spinning when I turn it on, which calls for some investigation.

Removing the four obvious screws concealed under the rubber feet and prying off bottom cover reveals the trivial innards:

The speed adjustment pot holds the little circuit board in place, with the green LED setting its jaunty angle.

The motor spins a pair of neodymium magnets:

I expected a gearbox instead of the direct drive setup.

Perhaps those whirling neodymium magnets have been slowly demagnetizing the motor’s internal (alnico?) magnets.

The motor brushes seem to be a pair of stiff wires, rather than carbon blocks, contacting the commutator, the wear from which may account for motor’s decreasing startup enthusiasm. Even though I didn’t expect a BLDC motor, this one may have been overly cheapnified.

Perhaps kickstarting the motor with the steel fork I use to fish the stirrer magnet out of the mug will get the thing going.