Precise Peristaltic Pump

thingiverse

We are a team of students from various disciplines at RWTH Aachen University, and we developed this project as part of the 2017 iGEM competition. After putting in all the effort that went into our pump, we're excited to share our results with you! We built this peristaltic pump as a general-purpose liquid handling solution for any project that requires transporting liquids. Our pump is capable of precise dosing and pumping, offering a wide range of dosing volumes and flow rates to maximize possible applications. Through 125 dosing experiments, we demonstrated and quantified the accuracy of our pump. For a tubing with an inner diameter of 0.8 mm and any flow rate or dosing volume within specifications, we showed an accuracy better than 2% deviation from the set value. Given the results of our measurements, the accuracy can be improved even further by adjusting the speed of calibration to the required flow rate. The pump can be controlled without programming knowledge using the built-in LCD display and rotary knob. Additionally, the pump can be remotely controlled via USB using serial commands. This simple way of communication is compatible with common software and programming languages (MATLAB, LabVIEW, Java, Python, C#, etc.). Our pump is simple and inexpensive to manufacture, with all parts totaling less than $100 compared to $1300 for the cheapest comparable commercial solution we could find. Besides a 3D printer, only common tools are needed. Our project is open-source in terms of hardware and software. We provide CAD files for the 3D printed parts, a complete list of required commercial components and their sources, and the source code used in our pump. Please visit our official wiki at http://2017.igem.org/Team:Aachen/Hardware for further information. In addition to our wiki, we've also published a construction manual on Instructables at http://www.instructables.com/id/Open-Source-Peristaltic-Pump/. You can find the software for the Arduino at GitHub: https://github.com/iGEM-Aachen/Open-Source-Peristaltic-Pump