iTouchless Pepper Mill & Salt Grinder

UPDATE 12/02/2015 at the bottom: these work ok, but not great. to expand, they tear sea salt up like nobody's business. peppercorn however??? good but not great. if we want fine pepper it simply won't do it. you're going to have to settle for medium or coarse. another thing. either i misread or misunderstood, but i thought i was buying complete stainless steel product. the gears that do all the cracking of the salt/pepper/etc. are plastic. i have no idea how long they'll last, but i wanted a set with stainless guts, and not plastic or cheap pot metal. if the manufacturers were reading this, i'd also add the SERIOUS NEED for a larger hopper for the product. we use ours most every evening and we can't go two weeks without filling them. if the cavity for the salt, etc was twice that large it would be wise... UPDATE 10-18-2015**** i'm still unhappy with the basic design of the grinder. if you can delegate 10" of product height to the product, then toss in another 1" of hopper space to double the capacity. for nearly a year i've been forever filling these up with sea salt and telicherry peppercorns. if people actually use these a lot, they'll probably be unhappy with this relatively low capacity. two major problems. 1, due to the continual need to add product to the hopper the small 'detent' lifts on the cylinder are wearing greatly. they'll be completely worn out soon if you use them quite a bit. both the stainless surround is nearly loose on the plastic fuselage holding the batteries and motor. just like the stainless sheath, the plastic hopper is wearing where it pops into place to lock as well. again, if you use these with meals you'll wear them out quickly. 2, not only do these wear out quickly because you're tearing them down to refill them, but items that are more solid break the plastic gear grinders down. these do fine for the himalayan sea salt that we use, but the telicherry peppercorns are hard, just like any peppercorn, and the gears are now missing a tooth or two. not only am i sure i ingested parts of the plastic gear work, the gears don't grind well. the peppercorns were originally broken down somewhat, but now they are big chunks if anything comes out. all in all this product is below average. i had a person tell me i shouldn't expect so much from a grinder. i reject that soundly. i bought these with the expectations they work. i think them breaking down and wearing out before a year of evening supper service isn't much to ask from the product. what they good for? the wedding gift for some people you don't particular like... do yourself a favor and skip these. UPDATE 12-02-2015 these officially shot craps last night. it's a shame since we did admittedly enjoy them while they worked. however, as i have stated above, they're not much more than an occasional novelty. as a person who engineers and repairs for a living, these simply aren't built to stand up to the burden of routine use. if you're in the mood for an occasional "oh my, these are neat" from your buddies, so be it. if you want them on your kitchen table for daily use, they'll fall apart. i've included pics to help illustrate the issues. you can see in one picture the separation from the see-through hopper to the grinder base. when this falls apart, the entire contents of the hopper fall onto your plate. we had our state senator over for supper and you guessed it - he's the poor guy that the pepper fell apart on and his t-bone steak carved from our own calf was covered in peppercorns. while it made for a great laugh and something to refer to later in conversations, i wasn't amused. another picture depicts the two grinders and the product we used in them. you can see on the left we haven't even managed to burn through a 1KG sack of sea salt. come on... if you can't crush sea salt without falling apart, then you can't call yourself a grinder another pic shows how the base breaks off of the hopper. the red wires exposed WERE attached to a light on the bottom of the grinder. why you need a light to see where the pepper is falling i don't know, but maybe a dark setting could explain that. regardless, the silver tube laying across the base enclosed the wires, but when the base breaks loose, it spins instead of being held affixed in one place. thus, the motor instantly shears off the tube, and winds up the wires pulling them out of the circuit board. the fourth pic shows the silver tube as it sets over the wires just for reference. again, i can't state it enough. nice idea. fun product. nearly no value.