Introduction

Peristaltic 12V dosing pumps are cheap and provide a large enough volumetric flow rate for our needs. Unfortunately there is not much information available on the type we are using. This post will discuss the method we are using to test the reliability and consistency of these pumps over a period of two hours. It is the first of several tests we will be conducting on different components of our water sampler.

Setup and Method

A pump is held in a clamp and powered from a 12v source. A .85 ohm, 1.4 watt rated resistor connects the pump to ground. The voltage across the .85 ohm resistor is measured over time using an arduino and this data is stored in an SD card. 

The arduino reads the voltage on an analog pin and stores that, along with the time since starting in milliseconds, in the SD card. Initially there is a delay of one second in between data points and after sixty points the delay increases to one minute. This data will be transferred to a computer where it will be used to show the current through the pump over time.

Code:

// A simple voltage logger that is heavily
// based on the SD Datalogger example sketch.

#include <SPI.h>
#include <SD.h>

const int chipSelect = 4;
const int sensorPin = 0;

int n = 0;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  while(!Serial){
    ;
  }

  Serial.print(“Initializing SD card…”);

  if(!SD.begin(chipSelect)){
    Serial.println(“Card failed, or not present.”);
    return;
  }
  Serial.println(“card initialized.”);

}

void loop() {
    String dataString = makeDataString();
    File dataFile = SD.open(“pumpLog.txt”, FILE_WRITE);
    if(dataFile){
      dataFile.print(dataString);
      dataFile.close();
      Serial.println(dataString);
    }
    else{
      Serial.println(“error opening pumpLog.txt”);
    }

    if(n<60){ 
      delay(1000);
      n++;
    }
    else delay(60000);
    
}

String makeDataString(){
  return String(analogRead(sensorPin)) + “, ” + String(millis()) + “; “;
}
 

Conclusion

Once the pump has run for two hours, the power will be turned off and the data from the SD card will be transferred to a computer. Using Ohm’s Law the voltage across the resistor will show the current through the system. The data will show what kind of trend, if any, the current draw has through the pump. It will also show if the current draw varies with a resolution of one minute.

This test will be repeated for two other pumps. Then it will be repeated with water flowing through the pump tube.