Syringe Pumps

[Cameron Clarke]

In my conversations with Iorodeo today we discussed how to pump the small quantities of reagents into the cuvette.  They have designed other systems with syringe pumps and they have had good success with New Era pumps. They are expensive, but there's a good python library and they have a lot of opensource code which we can access if we want.  It could be valuable to work together for the automated colorimeter and the lab robot syringe pump as we can share the work.  http://www.syringepump.com/index.php. Let me know if you want to collaborate. It might quickly solve one of your big challenges. 

Cameron

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

They're still $500 for a syringe pump, or $275 for an "infusion only" model. I bet we could replicate those specs with a 3D printed design for less than $100.

Perhaps the fastest way forward for the BioMONSTAAAR project would be to tell IoRodeo to go ahead designing their system with the $500 NE-500 pump for New Era, but plan to make an Open Source DIY replacement for it as soon as possible.

Patrik

[Cameron Clarke]

Makes sense to me.

"Don't let momentum set your course."

[Dietrich Dehlinger]

Yeah, multiple hundreds of dollars for a syringe pump is going to blow huge holes in any budget, especially if we need several. Right now the syringe pump we're designing use the ramps system which is like ~$150 for five independent channels, and then maybe 15 bucks for a motor, and then maybe ~20-30 in supplies (i'm guessing), that is still well under a hundred per pump. The ramps board is actually probably way overkill and we may want to think about how we could go even cheaper.

 

If you want to go to the ultimate cost limit you could have a board that is just these http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1182, which are the stepper controllers the ramps board uses. I think you can get them assembled for like $8 (in bulk) or so each off of ebay. it looks like each board only needs two control inputs, so you might be able to drive a large number off of a single arduino. so you might be able to get to something like ~$50 per syringe pump. If possible I'd like to have a pump design review on thursday to go over what I've been working on to see if I'm missing anything. 

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Hi Diethrich,

I'd like to see what you've been thinking of for syringe pumps. Are you going to be in at 5:30? We may want to start 3D printing some syringe pumps for the bioprinter group.

Patrik

[Derek Jacoby]

Love to be in on this chat as well. Can machine up in Victoria if you need metal components or non-printable plastics for any of it. I'm at bioc all day.

Thx,

Derek