Project pitch: DIY dosing pump with 3d printed peristaltic pump head, R-Pi controlled

[Mandelstam]

Couple of weeks ago I got an idea in my head that I've been playing around with. The idea was to make a dosing pump that's Arduino/Raspberry Pi controlled. I just like the idea to be able to customize it completely and have total control over it. And maybe be able to save some money as well.

My plan is to design and then 3d-print the peristaltic pump heads and mount them on stepper motors, either Nema 14 or Nema 17. I have a 3d printer at work that I can use. For rollers the idea is to use standard steel ball bearings to achieve a good low friction movement against the hose inside the head.

Printing your own pump heads gives the possibility to use different hose thicknesses depending on the amount of flow needed. Using a thinner hose gives a higher precision on smaller volumes. Thicker hose means quicker dosing of larger amounts. For example, a hose with id 4mm holds 3.7ml of fluid per 10cm. A hose with id 1mm holds just 0.25ml per 10cm. With a stepper motor that would give the possibility to dose even very small amounts equally spread over a whole day in theory. Using micro stepping, a stepper motor is virtually silent as well so it won't be a nuisance if it's running for longer periods of time.

I just did a quick run down of costs for all the materials needed and for a 6 head dosing pump (as an example) the cost would probably be a bit under $200. Including pumps, controller (R-Pi + drivers), housing. That's about double of a Jebao of the same size and under a fourth of what three DOS pumps would cost you. Quality wise it would be a lot closer to a DOS than a Jebao.

Before I run any further down the rabbit hole with this project I just wanted to run it past all of you. Anyone done a similar project? Any pitfalls you can see? Any functionalities that you would add or that you are missing from commercial dosing pumps? My own experiences with dosing pumps are very limited at the moment (=zero )..

 

[glb]

Sounds fascinating! I’m not sure how much money you’ll save though. How many pumps would you make for this cost?

 

[Mandelstam]

Sounds fascinating! I’m not sure how much money you’ll save though. How many pumps would you make for this cost?

There are some costs that would be pretty much the same whatever the amount of pumps would be, like the controller and the housing. My example was for a 6 header dosing pump, so 6 pumps with one controller for about $200. Every pump is about $20 or so, so if you make 3 header dosing pump it would be around $140. Rough estimate.

 

[Shameless_Dood]

I've looked at doing something similar to this. I think the trick will be getting consistent dosing out of it. Especially if you are making your own.

A quick search of eBay and I found dosing heads with motors for 7.99. God knows what kind of accuracy they'd get.

 

[Mandelstam]

I've looked at doing something similar to this. I think the trick will be getting consistent dosing out of it. Especially if you are making your own.

A quick search of eBay and I found dosing heads with motors for 7.99. God knows what kind of accuracy they'd get.

Yea that's why I've been thinking on making my own heads and supply them with stepper motors. Stepper motors are way more accurate for this kind of thing and if you have your own controller it's easy enough to calibrate them if it's necessary. Most cheaper dosing pumps use regular small dc motors. With them accuracy is much harder.

 

[Ranjib]

for reef-pi I am going with cheaper DC motor based dosing pumps for the beginning, then I intend to switch to stepper motor based dosing pump. I am not too worried about the dosing volume, as long as I dial it very slow and monitor things, that will be enough to keep things safe. My only advice will be to get the end to end thing working first, then optimize individual bits. Which means getting housing , drivers etc done first. For the first run I'll recommend going with some pre-made stepper motor based dosing pumps, that way you can focus on 3d printing housing and getting the electronics + code sorted first. Then focus on only one the stepper motor head.

I use pca9685 for pwm , which gives me 16 channels, enough for LED, dosing pumps and DC power head based wave makers. There are other cheaper options as well (pca9685 breakout board will cost 12$). The workload is small enough to be powered by a pi zero.

Godspeed

 

[Mandelstam]

for reef-pi I am going with cheaper DC motor based dosing pumps for the beginning, then I intend to switch to stepper motor based dosing pump. I am not too worried about the dosing volume, as long as I dial it very slow and monitor things, that will be enough to keep things safe. My only advice will be to get the end to end thing working first, then optimize individual bits. Which means getting housing , drivers etc done first. For the first run I'll recommend going with some pre-made stepper motor based dosing pumps, that way you can focus on 3d printing housing and getting the electronics + code sorted first. Then focus on only one the stepper motor head.

I use pca9685 for pwm , which gives me 16 channels, enough for LED, dosing pumps and DC power head based wave makers. There are other cheaper options as well (pca9685 breakout board will cost 12$). The workload is small enough to be powered by a pi zero.

Godspeed

Some good advice Ranjib! Thank you! And yes, I'll probably just start with a cheap stepper motor pump and sort out the other hardware and coding before moving along. I have to learn Python too so it will probably take me a while to sort that thing out.

 

[Ranjib]

Some good advice Ranjib! Thank you! And yes, I'll probably just start with a cheap stepper motor pump and sort out the other hardware and coding before moving along. I have to learn Python too so it will probably take me a while to sort that thing out.

You are welcome sir . Adafruit has an excellent tutorial on pca9685 and they are all in python. Let me know if you need a hand with the coding.
When I started with reef-pi I didn't know whole lot about electronics either... the best part about the hobby is it gives us ample time

 

[Mandelstam]

You are welcome sir . Adafruit has an excellent tutorial on pca9685 and they are all in python. Let me know if you need a hand with the coding.
When I started with reef-pi I didn't know whole lot about electronics either... the best part about the hobby is it gives us ample time

Awesome! I'll start a real project thread when it's a bit more hands on. I will probably need help sooner or later lol. My girlfriend studies to become a software engineer but refuses to learn Python for some reason. Well I don't blame her as long as she's in school and have enough of other languages to learn.

We are hopefully getting a laser cutter at work and if we are I'm probably going to design and cut the finished housing with that out of acrylic.

 

[Stigigemla]

I dont think its a good idder to 3d print your pump heads. It is small margins to get tube to work good and thermoplastics often will change measurements if it is under pressure. Buy heads made of nylon and rely on tjem instead.

 

[Mandelstam]

I dont think its a good idder to 3d print your pump heads. It is small margins to get tube to work good and thermoplastics often will change measurements if it is under pressure. Buy heads made of nylon and rely on tjem instead.

What pressure do you mean? I can't really see any real pressure working in a peristaltic pump.

 

[T Carey]

Interesting project. Go to WWW.POLOLU.COM for motor control boards that are cheap and work well. Those should interface with a PI easily. Their stepper motor controller boards are great. I use them in my mico CNC build.

Good luck. The only thing I would be concerned about is the bearings on the tubing compression rollers. A little Delrin drilled out for a shaft should do it.

I think the pressure the previous poster was taking about is the pressure between the roller and the sidewall that squeezes the tube. In the parked position there will be constant pressure on the sidewall at that spot. Perhaps printing with ABS would be a good choice.

 

[Mandelstam]

Interesting project. Go to WWW.POLOLU.COM for motor control boards that are cheap and work well. Those should interface with a PI easily. Their stepper motor controller boards are great. I use them in my mico CNC build.

Good luck. The only thing I would be concerned about is the bearings on the tubing compression rollers. A little Delrin drilled out for a shaft should do it.

I think the pressure the previous poster was taking about is the pressure between the roller and the sidewall that squeezes the tube. In the parked position there will be constant pressure on the sidewall at that spot. Perhaps printing with ABS would be a good choice.

Thanks! I've checked out Pololu before and for this project too. Great site.

What's your concern about the bearings? My reasoning behind them is that they don't have much friction so will roll gently against the hose but also that as I don't have a machine shop I'm very limited to what other rollers I can fabricate. Delrin rollers would probably work fine but I need to drill them pretty precise so they are symmetrical. Printed rollers will have too high friction to roll smoothly. As the pumps run dry and never get into contact with any fluids I'm thinking that normal steel bearings should be ok. But I'll gladly listen to any concerns! Nothing is set in stone!

For the pressure, I must admit I've never played around with a peristaltic pump before so I have no hands on experience, but as the hose is super soft it doesn't take a lot of pressure to compress it. And my idea was to leave 2x the wall thickness of the hose as distance between the roller and the wall. So the hose will be closed off but the silicone itself not compressed. But I hear you, the printer we have at work uses PLA. Maybe just beef the walls up so they are a bit sturdier could work.

 

[Stigigemla]

The roller do press the hose against the wall of the house so the hose dont let water through. To get it tight you need some amount of pressure.
Silicone tubing is not to recommend. All quality pumps has a hose made of santopren, novopren or similar.

 

[Mandelstam]

The roller do press the hose against the wall of the house so the hose dont let water through. To get it tight you need some amount of pressure.
Silicone tubing is not to recommend. All quality pumps has a hose made of santopren, novopren or similar.

Ok, then I get what you mean! Problem is that I haven't really been able to find any cheap heads without some random little dc motor already attached. Thanks for the heads up about the 3d printer plastic. I'll keep an eye on it and see how it behaves.

Never heard of santoprene before but googled it and yes, its properties look pretty good. But only comparison between silicone and santoprene I could find was:

Soft ventouse cups are becoming increasingly popular for assisted vaginal delivery. We report the results of a prospective random allocation controlled trial comparing two such cups. The results suggest that the silicone rubber cup is more likely to achieve delivery than a similarly designed cup made from santoprene [odds ratio 4.65, 95 per cent confidence interval 1.3 to 18.8]. Consequently we recommend the silicone cup for delivery when a soft ventouse cup is indicated.​

Why don't you recommend silicone for use in this case? Mechanical properties? Fatigue? I won't be dosing any strong acids or anything like that so those santoprene properties I don't think would be of any real value in this case.

 

[Stigigemla]

For one of the popular pump heads the life of silicone hose is estimted to about 600 liters and santoprene to about 3000 hours.
I have read about a few silicone hose breaks the first year for tanks about 120 gallons.

 

[Mandelstam]

Found some additional comparisons between different hose materials: http://www.gradko.com/tubing/products/
Clearaprene sounds really interesting for this purpose.

Silicone:

Silicone is a high performance polymer often used in pharmaceutical and medical industries as it does not support microbiological growth. Additionally silicone offers an outstanding working temperature range, good chemical resistance, flexibility and strength.
The wide temperature compatibility of Silicone tubing is superior to that of PVC and Santoprene tubing. Furthermore, Silicone has a smoother bore than Santoprene, offering a lower coefficient of friction.
High strength Silicone has the added benefit of improved tear strength in comparison to general purpose Silicone, making it durable and highly elastic tubing – ideal for use on peristaltic pumps or other repetitive impact applications. Both Silicone tubing ranges offer comparable flexibility.
Silicone is translucent tubing, giving the additional benefit of visual confirmation of flow and rapid identification of bubbles in the fluid.
This tubing exhibits average gas permeability. This can be improved by increasing the wall thickness. For reduced gas permeability, tubing ranges such as PVC should be considered.

Santoprene:

Santoprene® exhibits many similar properties to Silicone tubing. Its characteristics include very good chemical resistance to fluids such as alcohols, ozone, aqueous systems and corrosive aqueous systems. Furthermore Santoprene® exhibits good flow consistency for peristaltic pump applications and low friction to abrasive materials. It performs well under vacuum conditions.

It is latex-free, RoHS compliant and the material contains no Substances of Very High Concern (SVHCs) as classified by the REACH environmental regulation. Tested for toxic metals migration according to EN71-ASTM F963-95; BS5665 Part 3. This is tough tubing, showing good anti-ageing properties in harsh weather, sunshine and saline applications. Its operational temperature range is wide and it exhibits excellent environmental stability under changing temperatures.

Clearaprene:

Clearaprene® is Gradko's new transparent high performance thermoplastic elastomer (TPE).
Featuring high clarity, a very wide temperature and chemical resistance. Coupled with environmental toughness, this material is suitable for use in very demanding applications.
It is Ideal for use in peristaltic pump systems. It can be flared for ease of use with connectors. The high clarity enables observation of the medium and any bubble separation where this was previously impossible due to material limitations.
This material is Autoclavable and can cope with Gamma Irradiation and ETO (ethylene oxide) sterilisation methods for the most effective performance. The material has the exceptional additional benefit of being very clear and with a very smooth surface finish (similar to that of PVC). This significantly reduces chemical and particle pickup and internal spallation caused by aggressive particulate media.
It is free of latex and any substances of animal origin. It is fully RoHS compliant and the material contains no Substances of Very High Concern (SVHCs) as classified by the REACH environmental regulation.

 

[Ranjib]

Bump. Any update on this. I am thinking of redesigning reef-pi dosing capabilities with stepper motor. We got dc pump based dosing and 3d printed enclosure for the same. Now that I have a 3d printer , good time to revisit this. This is the next evolution for precise dosing mechanism. Would love to know if you learned anything in your journey that I should remember.

 

[T Carey]

Glad to see a little life on this thread. Since you have a 3D printer I would consider some sort of spring arrangement to apply pressure to the bearing/tubing. That way the tolerances on the build could be less critical and maybe allow changing of tubing sizes/thicknesses. Just a thought.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Bump. Any update on this. I am thinking of redesigning reef-pi dosing capabilities with stepper motor. We got dc pump based dosing and 3d printed enclosure for the same. Now that I have a 3d printer , good time to revisit this. This is the next evolution for precise dosing mechanism. Would love to know if you learned anything in your journey that I should remember.

I have made strides in this area, I have a thread on here and you even posted in it, but I fear you stopped following it after the first iteration.

I have made many changes to the pump head and frame, settling for this 3d printed design

and my newest version that controls 2 tubes at once for auto water changes:

however after using if for a few months and turning the unit off for a week, the indents where the roller bearings pinched the tube against the frame became semi permanent and too tough for the motor to overcome after restarting the unit 7 days later. I had to take it all apart and run the tube under hot water to get the indents out. Which makes me want to go back to the drawing board and completely revamp the entire design so that occlusion can be adjusted independently as well as removing pressure off of the tube for storage.

Designing it isn't the hard part, it's the trial and error, designing one, printing one and then testing it, make correction, print it again and so on.

This might motivate me to take up the task, if you're interested. I can also provide you with my .stl so you can print them out to determine other concerns that I may have over looked.

And of coarse the motor housing can easily be revamped to fit your reefpi needs. And I'm all for helping the reefpi community I've become rather good at 3D renderings.

Let me know... I loved this project and became quite fond of peristaltic pumps!!!