NateBrews wrote:If you get a chance, can you try it with a 1G jug with a domed bottom and see if the thing still holds the stir bar or if it just throws it? I have been using a 2L flask and a 1G jug, but the jug doesn't do the stir plate thing very well. I think it is just because the magnets aren't strong enough to hold it when the bar is that far away due to the domed bottom.
The one gallon jug (or any domed vessel) will not work well for two reasons.
1. - the dome will place your stir bar further away from its magnetic pair than a flat vessel would, reducing the magnetic pull between the two magnets.
2. the dome forms a "dynamically unstable" scenario, where the stir bar will have to fight gravity in order to stay at the peak of the dome. So now centrifugal force will trying to throw the bar out to the vessel's side, and gravity will be trying to pull it down to the base of the dome (also the vessel's side).