Where other stirring hot plates would be quickly destroyed by vapors or spills, these are designed to be purged using an inert gas through a fitting on the rear of the chassis. Purging provides a positive pressure inside the unit to prevent corrosive gas from attacking the electronics or stirring mechanism. Stirring hot plates feature a fully programmable memory of ten programs with ten steps each, temperature ramping, RS-232 interface, membrane keypad, and a full-function LCD. A built-in timer can be set up to 99 hours and is readable to 1 second.