Different source for peristaltic pump?

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Charlie_R

Charlie_R

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TFP Expert
May 8, 2013
2,156
Mexico, MO
I've been gone for several months, back with a question or two.

I have come across an odd item. In disassembling HP photo printers for recycling of the usable items inside, I now have a couple of peristaltic pumps used for metering the ink to the printer head. The ink appears to be alcohol soluble, so pumping that through the six tubes should clean it.

Has anyone else tried using this sort of pump for liquid chlorine? If anyone has, how long did it last in this type of service? If no one has, I may just be the first here to try it.

The drive system includes a 24Vdc motor with optical encoder. A quick online search didn't give me any clue for pumping volume, so I'll have to experiment with it.

Essentially, I just wanted to know if anyone else had tried something like this, reusing items from unusual sources.
 
Messing around with it today, on 24V, the pump spins quite fast. It can be regulated with a small amount of electronic wizardry. Next step is to clean the ink out of the 6 tubes, and then see what kind of capacity it has, then put together a driving circuit. I'll try to keep you all posted on the results.
 
Charlie_R said:
Messing around with it today, on 24V, the pump spins quite fast. It can be regulated with a small amount of electronic wizardry. Next step is to clean the ink out of the 6 tubes, and then see what kind of capacity it has, then put together a driving circuit. I'll try to keep you all posted on the results.
Click to expand...
Have fun with the experiment. Pictures would be nice too:D
 
If you don't mind the mess that is my electronics lab, I'll do a few pics as I go along. To give a bit of scale to the size of it, the belt pulley is about 2-1/4 inches diameter. This then drives a 1-1/2 inch gear for further speed reduction/torque increase.

The drive gears:



The motor with optical encoder, and the pump itself:



The business end, showing the 6 ports. You can also get a better idea of the optical encoder, being a "crown" style.



A short (poorly done) video of the unit on different voltages:

https://youtu.be/TU-kMeBlK3w
 
Did a bit of testing this morning. With all 6 ports being used, on 24V this pump will empty an 8oz (weight) cool whip bowl in a little over a minute.

Water did just fine in cleaning out the pump and tubing. Next is writing the code for the micro computer and figuring out how long to run the pump for a given amount of water.
 
Charlie! I would LOVE to watch you do this stuff! It is my kind of thing.........take things apart to see how they work and what I can do to make it better! Of course half the time it will never be the same after I get ahold of it!

Kim
 

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Charlie_R said:
Did a bit of testing this morning. With all 6 ports being used, on 24V this pump will empty an 8oz (weight) cool whip bowl in a little over a minute.
Click to expand...
Was that injecting into a pressurized line? This will reduce the flow rate. Even peristaltic pumps have max head so depending on the pump, it might not even flow. Worst case, you could always use it on the suction line.
 
I was planning on the suction side, yes. Forgot to mention that I could easily stop the flow through any of the tubes with my finger, so almost no head to this small pump.

There will be a "fail safe" in the electronic controls. A few turns of small gauge wire around the hot leg of the pool pump power will give enough of a signal that the mcu will pick up. If the pool pump is not on, then the dose pump can't operate.

I expect that I will be tuning this system most of the season. With a good repeatable set of volume numbers, it will be down to small tweaks in the first couple of weeks, I hope!
 
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