IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 43, NO.

9, SEPTEMBER 2007

3579

A PIC Microcontroller Based Electromagnetic Stirrer

Osman Kalender1 and Yavuz Ege2
Department of Technical Sciences, Turkish Military Academy, Bakanliklar, Ankara 06100, Turkey
Necatibey Faculty of Education, Department of Physics Education, Balikesir University, Balikesir 10100, Turkey
A microcontroller based rotating magnetic stirring system has been developed in this study. A mathematical model is proposed to get
electromagnetic field solutions. The magnetic stirring system consists of four-phase half-wound coils with phase currents of 2 radian
phase difference to achieve a rotating magnetic field. During the application, the liquid to be stirred is placed on the stirrer in a beaker
and a magnetic stir bar in the form of a magnet rod is dipped in. The magnetic stir bar, influenced by the magnetic field supplied by the
system, stirs the liquid rotating around the center of the rotational field. An adjustment of the frequencies of the voltage applied to these
coils is done through a supply circuit with a developed PIC microcontroller. Within the scope of this study, operating principle and the
mathematical model of the rotating magnetic stirring system have been discussed. Experimental results for the initial prototype are also
presented in detail. Furthermore, parameter optimization for the stirrer is performed.
Index TermsElectromagnetic stirrer, magnetic stir bar, PIC microcontroller, rotating magnetic field.

I. INTRODUCTION

T PRESENT, within the industrial applications for stirring

liquids with different viscosity, magnet pairs fixed at the
rotor of a classical electric motor are used. The magnet pair rotates as the rotor rotates. A magnet rod, also called a magnetic
bar, placed between this magnet pair stirs the liquid, rotating
at the same speed with the magnet pair [1][5]. However, especially at low speeds, the magnet in the liquid can, departing
from the point of center, follow only one of the pairs rotating
outside. Hence, the stirring process cannot take place at the desired level.
Recently, apart from these systems, linear or rotating magnetic stirrers have been used for stirring [6], [7]. These stirrers
consist of linear and rotating magnetic field systems and a magnetic stir bar, which is a simple magnet rod with N and S poles.
After a liquid in a beaker is placed in the center of the rotating
magnetic field, a magnetic stir bar is dipped into the liquid and
the bar moves along with the field depending on the rotational
speed of the field.
Today, there are rather functional commercially manufactured inverter units that can be used with various power values
[7]. These inverters, though seemingly advantageous regarding
the power they provide, are not suitable for this type of industrial application due to their cost and physical dimensions.
In this study, a new four-phase electromagnetic stirrer is designed whose PIC microcontroller based supply unit is economical, proper to industrial applications, and user friendly. Within
the scope of this study, first, the structure, the operating principle, and the mathematical model of the magnetic stirrer are
discussed with a justification for the choice of the number of
phase. Then, power supply and the control unit of the system
is presented. Finally, the results of the experiments and conclusions are given.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMAG.2007.902825

Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.

Fig. 1. (a) Structures, (b) appearance, and (c) 3-D view of the rotating magnetic
stirrer.

Fig. 2. Four-phase supply voltage waveforms versus time.

II. STRUCTURE AND MATHEMATICAL MODEL

The structure, appearance, and 3-D view of the rotating magnetic stirrer are shown in Fig. 1. The operating principle is similar to that of a synchronous motor, which has one pole pair.
Within the system, there exist four half-wound coils denoted as
, , , and , and a rotating magnetic field is created as these
coils are supplied with a sinusoidal waveform having a
radian phase difference between each of them.
Changes in these supply voltages versus time are given in
Fig. 2.
As seen in Fig. 1(a), while two-phase voltage waveforms are
in the same direction, the others are in the opposite direction.
Yet, when Fig. 1 is checked, it will be seen that half of the coil
currents move towards the center whereas the other half move
away from it. Therefore, one half of the circular iron core around

0018-9464/$25.00 2007 IEEE

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 43, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2007

degrees. Now, the aim is to determine the corresponding magnetic fields and the total magnetic field.
Perpendicular component of the magnetic field of a piece
of wire like an arc of
degrees,
, is written by using
BiotSavart Law as

(2)
The magnetic field of a finite length straight wire at a perpendicular distance is calculated as
(3)
Fig. 3. Perpendicular component of the magnetic field of a piece of wire like
an arc of ' degrees.

Now substituting
obtained as

into (3),

can be

(4)
where
ponent of

. The perpendicular com, can now be computed as

Fig. 4. Magnetic field of a finite length straight wire 1 at point D .

which the coils are wound will act as N pole, and the other half as
S pole. Depending on the change in the supply voltage, currents
passing through the coils will continuously change. Angular velocity of the rotating magnetic field, , is the stirring revolution
of the magnet bar per minute and is given as

(5)
where
Since

(1)
where is the frequency of supply voltage and is the number
radian.
of the pole pair per
When the magnetic stir bar is subjected to such a rotating
magnetic field, it will rotate at the same speed with the angular
velocity of the magnetic field. It is certain that coping of the
magnetic bar with the rotational field also depends on the magnitude of the rotational kinetic energy gained. Therefore, if the
energy of the magnetic field is smaller than the rotational kinetic
energy, the bar cannot follow the rotating magnetic field, and is
driven away. The angular velocity of the magnetic bar in such a
field is limited. As seen in Fig. 3, the magnetic field which rotates the magnet bar at point D can be written as the sum of the
perpendicular component of the magnetic field of two current
carrying wires of length and a piece of wire like an arc of

(6)

Now, to calculate
, substituting
into (3),
is obtained as

(7)

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where
(12)
is the magnetic momentum of the stir bar [8]. In (12),
is the
magnetic flux density of the stir bar. The torque, , attached to
the magnetic stir bar is calculated as
(13)
Rotating kinetic energy of the magnetic stir bar,

, is given as
(14)

[9], [10]. Inertia momentum of a magnetic stir bar, , with mass

and length , with respect to the axis passing through the
center of mass, is given in [11] as
Fig. 5. Magnetic field of a finite length straight wire 2 at point

D.

(15)
Then, substituting (15) into (14), kinetic energy is calculated as

where
dicular component of

. Similar to (7), the perpencan be calculated as

(16)
In order for the magnetic bar not to be flung,
must
be satisfied. Then, for the magnetic bar to rotate without being
flung on the rotating magnetic stirrer and mass center axis, the
condition
(17)

(8)
In (8), since
follows:

is calculated as

(9)

Finally, the total magnetic field at point

must be satisfied. The following discussion is about the choice

of number of the phase which is the crucial parameter for the
herein system.
Outer radius and height of the iron core used for the stirrer
are kept constant as 70 and 10 mm, respectively, due to physical
dimension considerations. Width
and depth
values of the
slot are determined to be 4 and 5.5 mm, respectively, considering
power supply requirements. After the isolation, these values are
measured as 2.8 mm for and 4.4 mm for . The number of coil,
, for a single slot can be calculated as
(18)
can be found to be 77 turns using (18), where is the radius
of the coil wire which is 0.4 mm for this specific application. In
Fig. 3, the distance
is calculated as

, is
(10)

(19)

where is the radius of the coil wire, is the width, and is the
depth of the slot. When we place the magnetic stir bar in such a
field, it will be in the same direction with the field, influenced by
the magnetic torque. In the rotating magnetic stirring system, the
magnetic stir bar moves with an angle of
radian following
the field.
The magnitude of the energy,
, of the magnetic stir bar
caused by the total magnetic field, is given in [8] as

In (19), all variables, except length of the stir bar

, are related with iron core geometry. Since
is itself dependent on
the phase number , is basically a function of . Hence, the
number of phase is to be optimized. For this purpose, using (17),
maximum angular velocities are calculated for values between
3 and 6 with appropriate parameter set for each value. Angular velocities are also measured experimentally by designing
stirrers having phase numbers between 3 and 6. Calculated and
measured velocities are shown in Table I. As can be seen in
Table I, the optimum solution is obtained when
since

(11)

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 43, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2007

TABLE I
MEASURED AND CALCULATED ANGULAR VELOCITIES FOR DIFFERENT VALUES OF k AND THE TYPE OF THE STIR BAR

TABLE II
PARAMETER SET OF THE MAGNETIC STIR BAR FOR k = 4 WHICH HAS THE OPTIMUM SOLUTION

TABLE III
CALCULATED TORQUE AND ENERGY VALUES OF THE MAGNETIC STIR BARS

it produces maximum angular velocity. The parameter set for

is tabulated in Table II. If Teflon coated magnet rods of
various sizes are thrown into the rotational field in the stirrer
, calculated torque and the energy values that we
when
can provide these magnetic stir bars with according to (17) are
given in Table III.
To this end, having completed the design, setup, and optimization of the rotating magnetic stirring system in our study,
we will proceed with the setup and software of PIC microcontroller based supply unit.

III. POWER SUPPLY AND CONTROL UNIT

Electronic circuit scheme of the rotating magnetic stirrer
supply unit is given in Fig. 6. When the energy is activated, the
phrase Electromagnetic Stirrer appears on the screen, where
the size of the magnetic bar is expected to enter. After the
magnetic bar dimension information is entered, the system asks
the user to enter the information for revolution of stir
.
Revolution depends on the dimension of the magnetic bar,
and its upper limit on the power requirements of the system.
Therefore, 2000, 1000, and 500 rpm are chosen for Type 1,
Type 2, and Type 3, respectively. Also, the lowest stirring
revolution that can be entered for all bars is set at 60 rpm. If
the information for revolution entered in the control system is
above the limit, the system, warning the user, does not accept
the number of revolutions entered. After a value of revolution in
accordance with the dimension of the magnetic bar within the
limits of operation is entered, the stirring process starts. Stirring
proceeds until the user stops the operation. The flowchart of the
SupplyControl unit is presented in Fig. 7.

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Fig. 6. (a) Control unit. (b) Power supply circuit scheme for a phase.

is calculated. Therefore
(22)

Fig. 7. Flowchart to control the power supply unit.

The flowchart for the stirring subprogram given as Start to

stir in Fig. 7 is shown in Fig. 8. For stirring process, the program first calculates a constant depending on the value of
revolution entered. Here, this constant can be interpreted as the
final revolution value of the supply signal. The constant is calculated according to the system operation period, , as follows:
(20)
In (20), is the constant reference value of the timing oscillator
frequency for the operation of the PIC set at 4 MHz, and is
the value of the chosen oscillator frequency. Here, the value
ms is the minimum required time by the software to
realize its initial functions, and 0.192 ms is the time required to
send a one-period signal shown in Fig. 2 to the coils of the stirrer.
Similar to that of classical electric machines, angular velocity of
such a system can be found with (1). Since number of pole pair
is 1, that is
in the stirring system, substituting (20)
into (1)
(21)
ms

ms

is the round operator since PIC microcontroller

where
neglects incomplete values in division and the microcontroller
used in the design has a process capacity of 16 bits. Thus,
probability of error stemming from the incomplete values in
the expression is eliminated. After the revolution constant is
calculated, to start the stirring process, the program inquires the
relation between the speed and size of the magnetic bar to be
, means that
used in stirring. In Fig. 8, this relation,
no initial speed restriction is required and the system can start
at revolution . For three different types of magnetic bars used
in this study, the values regarding the initial speeds at which
the stirring process is started without any trouble are presented
in Table IV.
Although the difference between the initial speeds obtained
experimentally and those provided by the software might seem
to cause loss of time in reaching the objective speeds, it is necessary to ensure the system operate safely. Moreover, the difference between the speeds estimated in Table I and the speeds
allowed by the software maximum speeds guaranteed have
been put forth to serve the same objective. In Fig. 8, variable
corresponds to the instantaneous frequency of the supply
signal, in other words, the rotation speed of the bar.
Here,
means the objective revolution value is
achieved and rotation process is realized at
speed. If
this condition is not satisfied, revolution is increased until
is obtained.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The trials have been performed in 800 ml water in a beaker.
For each size of the bar, maximum speeds in the water and the
amount of power drawn from the power supply at various revolutions have been determined. Fig. 9(a) is the picture of the

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 43, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2007

TABLE IV
ROTATION SPEEDS REGARDING THE SIZES OF STIR BARS

Fig. 9. (a) Experiment in prototype with the small bar. (b) Power supply and
control unit.

Fig. 8. Flowchart for the stirring subprogram.

experiment with the small bar, and Fig. 9(b) is the power supply
and the control unit. At the end of the experiments, maximum
speed limits are measured as 583 rpm for Type 3 bar, 1125 rpm
for Type 2, and 2207 rpm for Type 1. These results concur with
the theoretical values obtained mathematically in Table I. Experimental results also show that the measured speed limits are at
most 207 rpm above the maximum speeds guaranteed, given in
Table IV. Furthermore, the change in the values of power consumption according to the magnetic bar size and revolution is
measured. The graph of this change is in Fig. 10.
As seen in Fig. 10, for each bar, as the rotation of the bar
increases, the power drawn shows a linear increase at low revolutions, but reveals little change as the revolution increases. The
reason for the power drawn to have a linear increase at low revolution is that all of the water in the beaker does not rotate at the
same time, but the amount of the water rotating in the beaker
increases linearly as the revolution increases. That is because
the power drawn is directly proportional to the amount of the
water turning with the stir bar. Then, looking at Fig. 10, it can
be said that all of the 800 ml water in the beaker rotates approximately over 400 rpm for all bar types. As for the reason

Fig. 10. Change in power consumption with respect to the size of the bar and
rotation.

for the power drawn to remain almost constant as the revolution of the bar increases more, it is because all the water in the
beaker stirs. It is also seen in Fig. 10 that regardless of the size
of the bar, the power drawn with the same revolution does not
change at all over 400 rpm. The reason for this is that the bar
does not have a contribution, which can change the size of the
rotating magnetic field, and therefore, move in the same rotational field. In contrast, if the level of the magnetic field of the
bar is higher than the rotational field, an eddy current additional
to the current formed in the rotational field arises. Since the size
of this eddy current is determined by the size of the magnetic
field of the bar and therefore, the size of the bar itself, the power
drawn will be different. Then, two elements that will influence
the power drawn are decided to be the amount of the water and
power supply frequency. That is because as the amount and the
viscosity of the liquid (here, water) increases, the pressure put
on the unit surface of the bar increases. Furthermore, the value of
the rotating magnetic field, which provides the necessary torque

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and PIC microcontroller based power supply-control unit, and

the performance of the stirrer can be easily calculated with the
mathematical model proposed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. F. Kural, Assoc. Prof.
Dr. O. H. Tekbas, Assoc. Prof. Dr. O. Gurdal, S. Gurkan,
H. Tasdemir, and F. Zamanoglu for their assistance to prepare
this manuscript.
REFERENCES

Fig. 11. Revolution versus frequency of the power supply.

for the stir bar to rotate, increases and consequently the current
and the power increase. On the other hand, as seen in Fig. 11,
as the frequency increases, the speed of rotation will rise and
so will the energy spent per time. This in turn means the power
value will rise.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a mathematical model of a rotational magnetic
field for stirring liquids is proposed, and initial experimental results are presented. Design parameters of the stirrer are arranged
for a four-phase case to get the optimum results. The proposed
electromagnetic stirrer can be used in industry for stirring liquids with magnet rods following the rotating magnetic field.
In the system, in order to realize the stirring process seamlessly, it is suitable not to exceed the angular velocities of
2000 rpm for the small bar, 1000 rpm for the medium bar,
and 500 rpm for the big bar. Although the software developed
in our study ensures the rotating speeds of these values, it
has been experimentally observed that electromagnetic stirrer
can seamlessly work at most 63 rpm above these quantities.
Furthermore, the size of the bar used in the system to obtain
high angular velocity and the volume of the liquids to be
stirred must be kept as low as possible. In addition, viscosity
of the liquid decreases the angular velocity of the bar. Yet, if
operation at low revolution does not pose any drawback for the
user, bigger bars should be preferred, for more homogeneous
stirring. However, in the system designed, a PIC controlled
supply unit with a smaller physical dimension size is portable
compared to inverters. Moreover, the control unit produced
with the PIC microprocessor is expected to have a lower cost
than any traditional and commercial inverter. In conclusion,
the electromagnetic stirrer can effectively be used in industrial
applications due to its low cost, smaller physical dimension,

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Manuscript received April 26, 2007; revised June 18, 2007. Corresponding
author: O. Kalender (e-mail: okalender@kho.edu.tr).
Osman Kalender received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Department
of Electrical Education, Technical Education Faculty, Gazi University, Ankara,
Turkey, in 1986 and 2005, respectively.
He is currently working for the Department of Technical Sciences, Turkish
Military Academy, Ankara. His research interests are generalized electrical machinery, power electronics, and magnetism.

Yavuz Ege received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Physics
Education, Necatibey Faculty of Education, Balikesir University, Balikesir,
Turkey, in 1995 and 2005, respectively.
He is currently working for the Department of Physics Education, Balikesir
University. His research interests are solid physics, magnetism, and power
electronics.