Jonathan Kamens wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> At our house, we seem to go through an electric hand mixer
> (like, e.g.,
> http://www.shopkitchenaid.com/produc...&T1=KTA+KHM3WH)
> every 2-3 years. We don't use the mixer that
> often, maybe two or three times per month, and yet there
> always comes a time when the blades stop spinning and wisps of
> smoke come drifting out of the motor, along with the awful
> smell of a motor that shell spin its blades no more.
>
> Having once again smelled the smoke of hand-mixer doom, we are
> once again in the market for a new one, and so I thought I'd
> post and ask: is there a mixer on the market that won't give
> up the ghost after a few years (and if so where can we get
> it), or are we doomed to continue contributing to the
> ever-growing global waste disposal problem as long as we want
> to keep making chocolate chip cookies?
>
> (Yes, we could get it fixed, but I'm pretty certain that
> getting it fixed costs more than buying a new mixer.)
>
> (Yes, a real stand mixer would almost certainly solve this
> problem, but we wouldn't use one often enough to justify the
> expense, and besides, we don't have space for one in our
> kitchen.)
>
> Thanks in advance for any suggestions you can provide.
>

I wouldn't use a hand mixer for cookie dough but KitchenAid does
make a dough hook for the model you picked (the cheapest by the way).
Were you using the dough hook? Using beaters for dough is guaranteed
to burn out the motor. I'd also go with the strongest mixer I could get;
i.e. the 9-speed KA.

/da