1000ml Electric Digital LCD Magnetic Stirring Heating Mantle 842℉ 350W 0-1400prm

I bought this heating mantle to use for Essential Oil extraction, since I needed stirring and close temperature control. However, this product only provides those functions in theory, while in practice it's very disappointing.There are 3 issues with this item all of which I suspect are a consequence of the first issue. I will lay them out in detail:1) The mantle does not fit 1000ml round bottom flasks. I have a single neck and a 2 neck flask and neither will fit all the way into the mantle. They each sit against the top of the mantle where it curves down but they only come into contact with the mantle at that point. The result is that instead of evenly heating the flask, it concentrates heat on the edge of the mantle where it touches the flask. I added a video that illustrates this problem. There is enough room to place a mason jar lid below the flask without it touching the flask.This creates 2 additional problems.2) The bottom of the flask is too far from the center of the magnetic field, so the field coupling between the stir bar and the internal stir mechanism is very weak. Consequently, when stirring is turned up, the stir bar easily becomes uncoupled and stops stirring. The attached video shows this behavior as well.3) Finally, the temperature control is effectively useless because, since the flask is not in contact with the mantle except at that very narrow point on the circumference, a large amount of convective heating occurs even after the mantle has switched off. This renders the entire point of the digital temperature control moot. I can get a flask of water to 100c even when the set point is 50c. Even after the set point is reached (even if the power is disconnected) the heat continues to rise from the bottom of the mantle and into the bottom of the flask. Experiments and reactions requiring very specific temperatures cannot be performed with this mantle.At the end of the day, I have wasted $155 dollars. And now I need to get a better mantle. If I can take a small measure of comfort in anything, it is that perhaps you, dear reader, will not repeat my mistake.

Good value, works great. I’ve used it for rose water distillation and I’m very pleased. Just took a while for it to get to me.