DIY Peristaltic Pump: Cultural Teachings of Glorious Nation of Kazakistan

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Borat

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Easier and cheaper to just buy one lol
Always easier to buy.. however exeperience of building a peristaltic pump allowed me to later build a DIY alkalinity monitor..

Similarly, I built my own twin-chamber/twin PH probe CaRx (every single part incl. PH monitor but except CO2 regulator) - now I am building a Kalk reactor and it's easy-peasy-happy-peppa-pig... Overall unless you invest time working on simple DIY projects - you would not develop skills to take on more complex ones.

Follow my new thread on building a pressurised Kalk reactor!

 
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For those lazy to create your own PCB: here's the re-worked PCB prototype (Fritzing):

Capture6.JPG

I am converting 2 of my DIY peristaltic pumps to be wi-fi enabled, so that my aquarium controller can talk to KalkX pump (to control PH). Additionally my wifi-enabled DIY alkalinity monitor should be able to talk to DIY CarX dosing pump over wifi and adjust dosing automatically..

New PCB boards are being manufactured, once I receive them - I can post the code.
 

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TDEcoral

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Super cool build! Seems like there's a lot less DIY these days compared to when I first started the hobby 16 years ago, so I love seeing these projects.
 
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Well done mate! I am impressed with your diy skills.
The only. Thing I personally would do differently is get all those perspex shapes cut by laser. This would almost make it a bolt on job
No lasers here mate! Only a donkey and a water well!
 

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Very impressive!!! Isn't it such a cool feeling to know you made that. It's not about the money saved as time was used, but very self rewarding. Great work!
 
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Next projects is:

DIY Robotic Tester
 

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Thanks!

You may be able to cut (some parts) by laser - but I consider this a bit of "DIY cheating" :) Out of interest - how much would they charge for laser cutting in the US?

I made a DIY acrylic frag tank a while ago and made of mistake of ordering pre-cut acrylic (not laser cut though..). I ended up doing more work to trim those to correct size as they differed by as much as 3mm.. My parts are usually have about 0.5mm tolerance.

You also need to make drawings etc - I don't like wasting time in front of the computer (although computers is my main day job) , typically when I decide to build one of these devices, I invent/decide on sizes/shapes/plan as I go along..


And to asnwer the previous question - I provide all sizes in this thread, but there are no drawings:
- E.g. the rotary bit is cut with a 50mm holesaw, so the finished disk diameter is 47mm (holesaw takes quite a bit out in the process of cutting).
- the pivot was made using a 52mm sanding belt, therefore its (arch) diameter is approximatelt that
- and finally I cut A4 sheet into 4 equally sized pieces. A4 is 210mm/297mm, taking out 2mm for sawing - you can calculate the size of enclosure sides (104mm x 147mm)
- some parts for which size is not specified are size-free, i.e. you can make them larger or smaller.. for example the last piece in pivot assembly (made with M5 threaded rod) can be of any shape or size, it's purely aesthetic
Sorry just seen the reply.
I am not sure about US, I am in sunny United Kazakhstan or short for UK.
A year ago I decided to build my self a diy algae scrubber. What I did is hand sketch a rough schematic of it just on paper with dimensions and sent it off to few places that cut perspex to order. It wasn't awfuly expensive tbf and the finish was mi h better that I could ever do by hand. Showing off now and hijacking the thread, Few pics for reference.
 

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Sorry just seen the reply.
I am not sure about US, I am in sunny United Kazakhstan or short for UK.
A year ago I decided to build my self a diy algae scrubber. What I did is hand sketch a rough schematic of it just on paper with dimensions and sent it off to few places that cut perspex to order. It wasn't awfuly expensive tbf and the finish was mi h better that I could ever do by hand. Showing off now and hijacking the thread, Few pics for reference.
Nice!

Your scrubber looks really cool! Probably even better than mine!

The only thing I would improve is by adding small fans to your light fixtures - they may produce quite a bit of heat and over time melt/warp acrylic..

Where about are you in the glorious nation of United Something?
 

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Nice!

Your scrubber looks really cool! Probably even better than mine!

The only thing I would improve is by adding small fans to your light fixtures - they may produce quite a bit of heat and over time melt/warp acrylic..

Where about are you in the glorious nation of United Something?
Yeah I can see how that could be a issue! Saying that Been running for a year in the sump and tbf hasn't melted anything yet. In terms of tolerance the company that did the work had done it bang on as I requested I mean the mesurements
 
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Yeah I can see how that could be a issue! Saying that Been running for a year in the sump and tbf hasn't melted anything yet. In terms of tolerance the company that did the work had done it bang on as I requested I mean the mesurements
I am so fluent with acrylic work by now - that I cut it to about 0.5mm tolerance with just a handsaw... Takes time to learn - but once you are there - you can work on acrylic with almost no tools at hand...
 

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I am so fluent with acrylic work by now - that I cut it to about 0.5mm tolerance with just a handsaw... Takes time to learn - but once you are there - you can work on acrylic with almost no tools at hand...
That's it practice makes perfect. I am just too lazy
 

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hi Borat. which precision do you have with the pump? are you able to dose one drop ?
 
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hi Borat. which precision do you have with the pump? are you able to dose one drop ?
I don't quite know how one would define "precision".

I have built a total of 5x such DIY pump heads like in this thread (3x for my DIY alkalinity monitor and 2x for peristaltic pumps I that I have). Dosing 1ml requires approximately 1.4 pump turns (this number is linked to the type of tubing you use, in this example it's 3.2mm ID tubing). The stepper motor can move as little as 1/1600 turn, therefore if 1ml if 1.4 turns, the minimal dosing is approximately 1/(1600*1.4) ~ 0.0005 ml.

Normally, if higher precision is required, instead of just relying on doing small pump turns to dose the required amount, I use thinner santoprene tubing. For my Alkalinity monitor head that doses hydrochloric acid (typical titration test amount is about 3ml) - I use 1.6ml ID tubing and to dose 1 ml requires approximately 6 pump turns. There is however no need to dose less than 0.05ml of acid (or anything else for that matter) - there is simply no need for any precision beyond that level (at least for me).
 

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for precision i mean how much millimeters are you able to dose any time. i know that you could move one step at once but the dosed amount also rely on the volume between two bearings and not only on each step
 
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for precision i mean how much millimeters are you able to dose any time. i know that you could move one step at once but the dosed amount also rely on the volume between two bearings and not only on each step
The volume between ball bearings affect the maximum dosing amount per minute possible with a given Nema motor, not the minimum dosing amount. The minimum dosing amount is almost unaffected by the spread of ball bearings provided you have more than 4 of them and provided your "out" tubing is not super-short (greater than 20cm).

This version achieves 150ml/min dosing rate maximum, it's possible to get higher than 150ml/min (you would need to slightly tweak the code to kick-start the roller by initially moving it slowly) but probably 200ml/min would definitely be max.
 
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