DIY Dual Head Peristaltic Pump help

Oh, and for the metal bracket that i made (very roughly i might add :) ), i simply found a piece of galvanized steel in the decking section - and cut/drilled it.

If anyone's interested, here are the links to the parts -

[Motors

[Pump Heads

Total cost:
pump heads (2) @ $40 plus $15 shipping
Motors $14 + 7shipping
misc parts from Lowes for driveshafts and mounting $12
Digital timers - have some laying around...

Dosing pumps for 2 part TOTAL cost - $88 (compared to $230-350 buying a commercial product)
 
Great job tapping a #4 screw :). Looks great too since you bought motors with casings. I didn't even notice the coupler wasn't a 1 piece until after reading. Those still look like ice maker fittings. I'd take one with me to HD and check on some tubing. Probably 3/8", which is common to them, but not so much on RO/DI units.
 
One last thing - these motors are a little noisy, but i'll survive for only running them 4 minutes a day. I may put them in a box of some sort to shield the noise if I get a round to it.....we all know how that goes.
 
update - still going strong. I'm through about a half gallon of each part and the liquid levels in the jugs are identical.
 
I have a hanfull of the same heads but have never found the time to get them up and running. The plan is to use a stepper motor or a hall effect sensor to give precise dosing.

I also purchased some smaller 3 gang head that use MUCH smaller tubing. I am not sure what route I am going to go.
 
yeah, my original thought was to put the two heads together on one stepper motor - notice the title of the thread says "dual head"...

ANyway, once the heads arrived, i realized that they couldn't be mounted together and then i realized that stepper motors were complicated and relatively expensive compared to these guys. Plus, for 2 part dosing, high accuracy is not all that important. SO long as both jugs get used completely and at approximately the same time, then it's fine.
 
Just reread my last post and realized my first sentence could have been misinterpreted as rudeness - which was not my intent. sorry it came across that way. I was simply trying to say - "yes, good idea Bean and I had a similiar idea of making this a dual head doser, but that fell through when I received the parts..."

Cheers :)
 
no offesne was taken, your not the type who says rude things in response to casual conversation... we do have our share of those folks though!

I just noticed that the fronts of mine are not keyed either.
 
PBrown.

Do you think its possible to lower youre rpm.

I want this sort of system to dose about 3 ml a day.

Gr Erik
 
well, the heads produce about 3.4mL per revolution, so you'd need to find a motor that has about a 1rpm speed and then run the timer for one minute.

I'm not sure these particular parts would be ideal for your low volumetric flowrate. You can probablly easily find other pump heads that have smaller tubing and thus, lower flowrates per revolution. You'll just have to look a little. The concept should work fine though.
 
Been Animal,

A gear reduction or VFD.

Sorry but im from the Netherlands an i do not know what you mean?

I understand the word gear reduction but cant find some sort of device.

Gr erik
 
Erikk, you would need to find a suitable gear motor on ebay (A motor fitted with a reducing gear set).

A VFD is a "variable frequency drive" and would be suitable for AC motors. This is an expensive option.

This leaves you with 3 basic choices:

1) A Speed controlled DC motor - this would be good if you want to fine tune the dosing rate per time period and did not have a timer that had small enough intervals.

2) A stepper motor - this allows you to tell the motor EXACTLY how many revolutions you want it to make. This is great for a microcontroller based doser.

3) A 1 RPM motor (as pbrown mentioned) and a timer. This will allow basic dosing. You set the timer to provide the volume over a given time.

If you do not need to vary the speed or have fine control, then the 1 RPM motor is the easiest to work with.

I would look for a smaller peristaltic head with a built in motor. They can be had on eBay all the time.
 
One other option that could be done as a last resort (if you couldn't find the exact motor you needed) is to lower the voltage slightly on the DC motor. THis will hurt your torque but if the motor is still strong enough to turn the head, then it will slow it slightly. The other options Bean mentioned above would all be better though.
 
I used a similar setup to do automatic water changes....I think this method would be hard to use for 2-part dosing becaues of the inaccuracy, but I suppose if you test often, you could dial it in by adjusting the time the pump is on....This would obviously require a pretty accurate timer though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
How to Install Linear Actuators for Easy Lifting of Your Reef Tank SPS Light
Replies
4
Views
341
oreo57
oreo57
A
Aquarium Temperature Control: How I Hacked My Air Conditioner to control my tanks temperatures
Replies
6
Views
331
Naso180
N
B
Replacing my Poseidon PS4 return pump
Replies
1
Views
405
Vinny Kreyling
Vinny Kreyling
C
Help with aio return pump.
Replies
6
Views
411
Cruzersmith
C
D
Balancing a Dual Sump System
Replies
18
Views
1K
Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Back
Top