Several design decisions were made based on our pump parameters needed. For example, we need at least one meter of pump head and we need to be able to move water through roughly 5 meters of 3/16” (.476 cm) tubing (most likely there will be less tubing involved, but this is a good number to start with).

Through observation, I found that the throughput of a single pump at 1m head and room temperature was 50mL/min, or .83 cm^3/s, and the maximum suction head is greater than 1.5 meters, which was the highest I could place the pump without creating a more complex setup. 

With a tubing cross sectional area of .71 cm^2, the velocity of the water in the tube being moved by the pump is about 1.2 cm / s. With such a small velocity, the head loss directly resulting from the 26 tee joints is about .76 cm, and the head loss from the friction of the tubing is even less than that. 

Because we don’t have to worry about head loss, and the max head one pump can provide exceeds our requirements, I decided that the design should combine two pumps in parallel to improve throughput rather than in series to improve head. 

Now I could design the dual pump mount! I went with a design that mounted on the inside of the C-Channel spine, with the colinear, top-to-top facing pumps sticking out perpendicular to the c channel. The first 3D Print should be finished tomorrow! Pictures below.

I’ve completed two schematics for this project. The first is the base unit schematic (above). This is the main unit we will develop first. The schematic includes 8 valves (shown as inductors on the schematic) and one TPIC power shift register for controlling them. 6 lines are connected to a header: 5V, 12V, GND, SCK, DATA, and RCK. Because the base unit will have 24-31 bags for sampling, rather than 8, we will be using 4 TPICs in series on a single board to control a corresponding number of valves. The 3 additional TPICs will be connected in the same way shown in the extension unit schematic (below), only without headers in between sequential TPICS and only using one waste valve at the end. 

Eventually, extension units will allow additional samples without adding complexity to the process. 6 wires and one water line will connect the base unit to subsequent extension units, each with 24 bottles and an output line themselves. 

The dummy switch, which is meant to represent a water probe that will be located at the end of each unit to check that water has flowed to the end. This is critical to the system’s sampling process: if the system tries to sample a specific amount of water based on the time the pumps are running, then it needs to know when to start timing. The probe will “short” like flipping a switch (though with much much more resistance) and send a low signal to a digital pin.

By: Chet Udell

The OPEnS lab contributed a demonstration of the new water quality sampling system they are developing as part of a “Rube Goldberg” water machine that passed water from unit to unit.  This was organized by Rolf Hut as a collaborative effort between institutions (each one contributing one or two units to the Rube Goldberg machine), and was widely seen by conference participants as “street art” immediately outside the conference.  This was the first time such an effort had been tried, and brought many smiles, and much publicity for the OPEnS initiative.