Scilogex SCI340-ProT Circular-top Digital Magnetic Hotplate Stirrer w/Sensor & Stand, 5" Dia. Ceramic Coated Steel Hot Plate, 340C Max, with Timer

First unit I received had defective temperature control and insufficient heat to boil water. Replacement unit took 10 days to arrive--very inconvenient. The second unit was in apparent "good" working order except that it is also useless (insufficient heat) for boiling water so I sent it back for refund.Update: They charged me $42 for restocking fee, even though their unit is defective! This company is not only falsely advertising the capability of the product, but they are also apparently comfortable stealing your money when you return their uselessly defective merchandise.I recommend DON"T WASTE YOUR MONEY--Buy elsewhere!So far I’ve had two of these things and both are useless for heating and boiling water. I measured 390 Watts using a calibrated (+/- 0.3%) digital power meter. These are NOT 500 Watts as it falsely says in their specifications. Subtracting some overhead for the power supply and controls the hot plate couldn't be more than about 350 watts.What's even worse is the thermo-conductive design is extremely inefficient; probably partially due to the ceramic coating on the burner surface and partially due to other factors. This thing takes about 40 minutes to bring 1 liter of water from ambient to 100 C, and then it never achieves a rolling boil -- only a few bubbles every few seconds. If you plan on using this for distillation or for making condensate, etc. - FORGET IT!I e-mailed the company telling them I suspected a defect and asked them how many watts the unit should draw - but they refused to answer my question, only telling me that I need to use a flat bottom flask. These guys obviously think like idiots because of course that's the first thing I did. I also made a special insulating ring out of silver-coated aluminum and fiberglass, which I placed around the hot plate and bottom of the flask. My setup had the maximum surface area in contact with the hot plate and an insulating "mantle", and still my liquid only absorbed 218 watts of heat energy (calculated, based on empirical measurements).I did every reasonable thing I could to get this thing to work and I tried two different units to make sure I didn’t have a defect; so it is my conclusion this thing is crap! And so are their customer support and their ethics for stealing my $42 restocking fee just to put the crap unit back in their inventory so they can sell it to the next sucker!

I needed a unit that could hold a steady temperature and mix viscous oils. After looking for other solutions on Amazon this was the only one that that I could find that was affordable. Yes it came with a stir bar and a pt1000 tempature sensor probe but it did not come with a stand to use it? For the price I guess you cant really complain but it would make sense to include one..There was a time while trying to bump up the temperature to fast it jumped dramatically from 30c to 100c. You'll have to be patient with the knobs if you don't want this to happen.Now I could be wrong here but I don't think this unit spins at its advertised rpms. Going from 500-1000 or even its maximum speed i can't really see a difference. Again I could be wrong here and I am no professional but that is just what I can see.Overall I have been using this unit for several hours for 3 days and have no major issues with it. If you are not trying to boil water or not looking to mix things at a very high rpm then I would get this unit. It's the best thing I can find for the price without having to tinker with a pid.Will come back in a few days weeks or months to share how well it lasts under daily use.

This hot plate can't boil water even at the highest setting(280C) with every container I have tried( with the exception of a small copper frying pan I tried looking for anything that would work). I really don't need very high heat for most of my applications so this is not the reason for the low rating. What I really really hate about this item is the high pitched whine the device produces when the spinner is on. I called and emailed the manufacturer, but they didn't respond to either. I can hear the noise in the adjacent room and its painful to be near when its on. If you use ear protection in your lab, or set it and leave then this problem might not impact you. Also, you must turn the knobs slowly or the device just set a random temp/rpm. I would not buy this item again, or anything else from this manufacturer as the quality of the product and service are both low.

It's a lab hot plate. They can take a beating given what they do. But, this one was relegated to light duty. I didn't need gobs of heat, I needed accurately administered heat. This hot plate did that very well it was always accurate. However, we log hours here as part of the records keeping. That $200 hot plate lasted 18:46 hours! That's more than ten bucks an hour, what's worse it quit at a most critical time costing a week's work. I can't tell you how frustrated I am.This hotplate is not a good choice for vital work.Customer support is never available . I have called and left a message three times. No return call.

I would have given this five stars except it stopped working 30 minutes ago. I've been using it occasionally over a couple of weeks since it arrived. I was using it all morning to keep something warm when suddenly it just stopped heating. The lights are on and the temperature measurement on the plate and the probe are reporting falling temperatures. I turned it off then on, unplugged it and let it sit and plugged it back in. The magnetic stirrer still works but the heating stopped. It says it's on but it's not heating. I had it set to 84C, no unusual environment, perfectly dry and cool. It was working perfectly and now it's not. I would say about 10% of everything I buy on Amazon turns out to be crap. I guess I'll be calling tech support or whatever. Judging by the mangled English in their manual this is going to be a rough ride...

This is my second one bought and both have stopped stirring within 100 hours of use. I use it for vape juice so the speed never gets set above 600 and the temp never gets set above 30 so the product is crud..

I have some concerns, but I gave the unit "4 stars" based on value, and it working minimally as described.My first concern is regarding the LCD display. Mine is suffering from "artifacts" and occasionally "blinking off".The unit was shipped on it's side, a terrible idea in my opinion, and probably my problems are related to this error.There is a 5-7 degree celcius "spread" with the optional thermometer hooked up. It goes up two or three degrees above temp, then drops down to 4 or 5 degrees below your target temperature, and then slowly creeps back up. OK for the price I suppose.The temperature probe is NOT included despite being listed under "features". I give Seoh Corporation huge props for shipping me a N/C temperature probe when I pointed out the error in the product description to them. Very great company imho.

So far so good. Delivered quickly and has been working very well. Easy to use and good temperature control. Seems like it is very god quality for the price too. Only just starting using it, so if there are any problems i run into i'll update this.

This unit seems great quality out of the box, but in use it was unable to boil 500ml of pre-heated water. I gave up trying after 1.5 hours of heating and am sending it back for a refund. Only useful if you intend to work at low temperatures.

Does the job with good accuracy and easy use. Worth the price. The conduction from plate to beakers could be better but that might need a pad or mantle maybe.

Good build quality and works great.Comes with one of each type of mixer.