Taylor 9265 Magnetic Speedstir Start-up Pack with Batteries

The product didn't work. Pressed the button and nothing.

I tried to titrate the Taylor salt test using the swirling by hand method in the past. I never could get a consistent result. I attempted to purchase the Taylor stirrer last year but it was destroyed at the post office and it was the last one at the time. It became available again this year. I received it quickly, put the batteries in and commenced the test. Turned it on with the leds lit. 1 drop of chromate and it immediately turned yellow. The leds were helpful. It makes a very interesting swirl. Then,1 drop at a time of the nitrate. When I got to the final drop, it immediately completely turned salmon. No interpolation needed. What a difference. Highly recommend it. Draw back, the box needs to be stiffer to protect stirrer. However, the box was ugly but the product was unscathed. Batteries are tricky. The holder is stiff. I recommend placing the positive end of the batteries in first and pushing each second battery against the spring as you install each second battery. Worked perfectly. Very valuable tool.

Excellent product

This is stirrer is a game changer. I Manage a community swimming pool and need to test the water chemistry daily. The procedure for some of the tests involves adding in the reagents one drop at a time, while stirring. This can be a pain especially when having to hold and swirl the test vial in one hand while adding 10-30 drops with the other, just for one test! The stirrer makes the task much easier as I no longer have to swirl the vial. It throughly mixes the reagents so I can concentrate on accurately counting drops. The built in light also makes it much easier to observe the color change of the reagents. Thus the test results are more accurate and consistent. It is actually kind of fun to use, I wish I bought it sooner.

I thought this would be a little on the flimsy side. It is not. It is pretty hefty. To insert the batteries, you must unscrew the back. When I first inserted the batteries, it did not work at all. I had to remove the back a second time and make sure the batteries were inserted securely. Then it worked. It is not too intuitive. There are two buttons. One button is for well lit situations, and the second button is for darker situations. There are six small LEDs in the base that light up when the second button is pushed. There are two options for turning the stirrer on: push the button for the stirrer only or push the button for the stirrer and the lit LEDs. I would think that one button would turn on the stirrer and the other would turn on the lit LEDs. Again, one button turns on the stirrer only. The other button turns on the stirrer plus the lit LEDs. The instructions say to turn the stirrer off with the same button you used to turn it on. That is, if you turn it on with the "stirrer on" button, turn it off with the "stirrer on" button. Likewise, if you turn it on with the "stirrer plus lite" button, turn it off with the "stirrer plus lite" button. However, I found that once the stirrer is on (with or without the light) using either button, then either button can turn it off. That is, if you turn it on with the "stirrer on" button, you can turn it off with the "stirrer plus lite" button and vice versa. I always had a hard time stirring the solutions by hand, this is a great and easy fix. It is much easier to add the solutions to the tube with the automatic stirrer until the color changes. The color changes immediately. No need to stop and shake by hand then continue adding drops.