Which motor (type) to use for an arduino controlled magnetic stirrer? I am in the process of building my own sous vide machine and like to replace the pump typically found in most commercial machines with a magnetic stirrer unit. I figured the easiest way would be to use a motor to spin a permanent magnet (instead of creating a strong rotating magnetic field electrically). I first started experimenting with some 12V DC fans leftover from an old computer. By either lowering the input voltage or via PWM I was able to obtain appropriate rotational speed (don't ask me about exact speeds, I guess around 300rpm or so). With the project maturing I am not sure which motor (type and/or exact model) to use. I hoped some of you might point me in the right direction for the type of motor or even better, could suggest a specific model. I considered stepper motors or continuous  servo motors. My criteria for the motor are:


easy to control rotational speed between 0 and around 500 or so rpm (for ramp up and variation of speed to increase turbulent flow)
ability to rotate both clockwise and counter clockwise
enough torque at all speeds to spin a disk with magnets attached (weight and inertia probably negligible, the to be used alnico magnets create a field strong enough to lift 0,4kg each)
small axial dimensions
reasonably priced and long lasting
quiet 


The following picture shows a commercial magnetic stirrer found in your average laboratory. The blurry white object in the glass beaker is the the so called stir bar or "fish", a PTFE coated permanent magnet. It spins due to the rotating magnetic field created by the actual device underneath the beaker.
I'd personally recommend a continuous rotation servo or a brushed DC motor. Personally, for this kind of load, I think it would be easier and cheaper to go with the brushed DC motor. You have to remember a continuous rotation servo is a DC motor with some circuitry so you can send pulses to it to control the speed (although it's not directly proportional to the signal you send).

A servo is the only other option besides a brushless motor; both require a little more circuitry than the brushed motor/continuous servo. The additionally cost more. This blog post covers the differences between brushed and brushless motors.

For driving a continuous, you hook it up to power [depends on your servo voltage], ground, and another Arduino pin and use the servo library to send a signal as a degree (90 = no speed, 180 = full speed forward, 0 = full speed backward).

A brushed you would need a h-bridge that allows you to either send voltage, send no voltage, or send reverse voltage (for backward). This chip (~$5) does that for two motors and allows PWM for different speeds. It also includes a brake function, although that doesn't seem necessary for you. It can handle up to a "2.4 A continuous (4 A peak)." I talk about this in this answer of mine.

Quick note, if you want to control the exact RPM of the device and not just manually adjust it to a good rate, you'll need some sort of a rotary encoder or similar. A reed switch (sends current depending on magnetic fields) would work perfectly for this purpose, just mount it below the magnets and figure out the degrees rotated by the motor for each "pulse."