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There are many different fluid pumping mechanisms to choose from, but the peristaltic pump is a great choice when you don’t want the liquid to contact any moving parts. That is ideal for beverage dispensers and medical equipment, because the liquid only touches the tube it runs through and that is easy to clean or replace. If you want to build your own peristaltic pump, YouTuber Mr Innovative created a DIY design that utilizes an Arduino for precise control.

A peristaltic pump works by pushing the liquid through a flexible tube. Inside the pump there are rollers that spin while pushing against the tube, forcing the liquid (or air) along. The rollers only make contact with the outside of the tube, so there is no risk of contamination. To clean the inside of the tube, one only needs to run a solution through the pump. If contamination is a serious concern, as would be the case for medical equipment, it is easy and affordable to replace the entire tube.

Mr Innovative kept this DIY peristaltic pump design simple. The 3D-printed pump housing mounts onto a stepper motor, which turns the rollers. Those rollers are three skate bearings mounted in a triangular formation. The flexible tube runs through the housing around the outside of the rollers. As with other projects from Mr Innovative, this uses an Arduino Nano mounted onto a custom driver board to control the stepper motor. A Nextion LCD touchscreen lets the user enter how much liquid to pump. To calibrate that, the user simply runs the pump for one minute and measures the amount of liquid pumped during that time.

The post A DIY peristaltic pump controlled by an Arduino appeared first on Arduino Blog.

A few months ago we showed you a bar bot built by [GreatScott] that uses peristaltic pumps to food-safely move the various spirits and mixers around behind the curtain. The bar bot uses three of them, and at $30 each for pumps with decent flow rate, they added a lot to the parts bill. These pumps are pretty much the ideal choice for a bar bot, so what do you do? [GreatScott] decided to see if it was worth it to make them instead.

Peristaltic pumps are simple devices that pump liquids without touching them. A motor turns a set of rollers that push a flexible tube against a wall. As the motor turns, the rollers move liquid through the tube by squeezing it flat from the outside in turns. Typically, the more you pay for an off-the-shelf peristaltic, the higher the flow rate.

[GreatScott] figured it was cheaper to buy the motor and the control circuitry. He chose a NEMA-17 for their reputation and ubiquity and a DRV8825 controller to go with it. The pump is driven by an Arduino Nano and a pot controls the RPM. After trying to design the mechanical assembly from scratch, he found [Ralf]’s pump model on Thingiverse and modified it to fit a NEMA-17.

The verdict? DIY all the way, assuming you can print the parts. [GreatScott] was trying to beat the purchased pumps’ flow rate of 100mL/minute and ended up with 200mL/minute from his DIY pump. Squeeze past the break for the build video and demonstration.

Is there a bar bot build on your list? No? Is it because you’re more of a single-malt scotch guy? Build a peristaltic pachyderm to pour your potion.



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