DIY Doseing Pump

[ecajoe]

I use to use a habamist to dose prime to my 500 gallon fresh water ray pond I had it on a drip system

[box]

do you know the brand of the mechanical pencil that you got the hard tubing from?

[Polarcollision]

Brilliant! How is it holding up over time?

[Belac]

do you know the brand of the mechanical pencil that you got the hard tubing from?

 

 

I have no clue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brilliant! How is it holding up over time?

 

Just fine the original on my planted is comeing up on 5 months now. All I have had to do was top off the liquids and changed the batteries one time. I did have to reglue the pump head to the mechanical part once when I dropped the whole thing off the top of the tank and it hit the floor. I was in a hurry and didn't move it out of the way as good as usual.

 

The one on the salt tank hasn't had any thing but refils about every 8 or 9 days. Its working like a champ.

[Polarcollision]

Just fine the original on my planted is comeing up on 5 months now. All I have had to do was top off the liquids and changed the batteries one time. I did have to reglue the pump head to the mechanical part once when I dropped the whole thing off the top of the tank and it hit the floor. I was in a hurry and didn't move it out of the way as good as usual.

 

 

The one on the salt tank hasn't had any thing but refils about every 8 or 9 days. Its working like a champ.

I put this on my to-do list for the year

[Belac]

If you run into snags or have questions on building one let me know. I will help the best I can.

[Veng]

Ok bumpage time. Did you have any trouble with the spring rusting in the end? This project is coming back up on my radar of things to do in the near future and I was wondering if this ended up being an issue or not. After I get my light all done up, I should have 2 free outlets on my Apex that would be perfect for a couple of wall warts to power a set of dosing pumps for two-part made from these.

[Belac]

I just went and checked for you, still no signs of rust.
I did learn something new this week. Apperently these things give you a warning when the batteries are about to die.The one on the planted tank last time quit when I was out of town on the weekend. However there is apperently a small red LED built into the unit some where. When the battery gets low it starts to blink and lights up the whole top of the airwick. Really a nice feature if you are runnign them on batteries. It is nearly impossible to miss the blinking light.

[Veng]

Thanks for the update!

 

Yeah, I'll run them off a wall wart so I can control them with the apex for sure though.

[Belac]

Eventually I will get around to drumming up a transformer that will actually run the one on the reef tank with out cooking the board. I have been watching for one at the thrift store. I just don't want to spend money on a wart.

[Veng]

I made a first pass at one today. But I've done something wrong and the gears grind when it reaches the end. Probably didn't measure it right. Although I'm thinking I may try one of the air pump solutions though.

[Belac]

If the gears grind and the red lever doesn't return then your plunger head isn't close enough and the arm is bottoming out. (Turn the other one you bought on with out anything in it to see if it is the same grind/problem).
If the gears are griding differently then I would suspect it was because it was to high.

[jbowser]

Maybe this is hijacking your thread a little, but I just bought and gutted a dettol no touch (cheap automatic soap dispenser, like the picture a few posts back), is there interest in some picture here or would it be better to start a new thread?

 

Jb

[Belac]

I am sure they use similar mechanics. However those are motion sensing just like some of the airwicks so they don't really work for a doseing pump.

[jbowser]

Well there is a sort pump inside with 2 one-way valves and yes it is motion sensor based, but it could be controlled using an arduino or similar uC.

 

But the quantity ranges from 1 to 1.5ml so I will be using it as a feeding pump for a 3g with ats experiment.

[Belac]

Well make sure you give us a build up of your contraption in a new thread. I am rather curious as to how it works now. Sounds like it works compelatly different.

[jbowser]

yeah I will do that I will try to document all the diy stuff that I will be doing for this tank, but for now I'm not completely sure how I want to mount the pump to the tank and how I want to make the food container.

[xerophyte_nyc]

Interesting contraption. The only issue I see, as someone earlier alluded to, is that the dosing contents will settle in the bottle without anything to mix them. If you are home and have the time, sure it is easy to just swish the bottle around every so often. For phyto, or other microscopic particulate substance, the pump will not be delivering things evenly.

 

I recently hooked up a non-DIY automatic doser which uses an airline connected to an airpump to keep the contents mixing. Maybe it would be worth it to hook an airline into your gadget, would probably add another $10-12 bucks using a cheap low power pump, some tubing, and a small valve to prevent backwash.

[Belac]

Well the final plan is to hook it into one of my farming bottles which are being stirred constantly. Settling is an issue. But then that issue exsists with all pumps doesing particulate.

[mcarroll]

I am sure they use similar mechanics. However those are motion sensing just like some of the airwicks so they don't really work for a doseing pump.

 

Might be fun to see if the fish would learn to to set off the motion sensing feeder. ;-)

 

-Matt

 

P.S. great doser! Like you mentioned I'm a little concerned in the long run about the spring. There can be some heavy metals in the spring steel which would dissolve a bit in an acidic solution. Not sure rust is what you'll have to worry about as that (IIRC) requires oxygen.

[Belac]

Might be fun to see if the fish would learn to to set off the motion sensing feeder. ;-) -Matt P.S. great doser! Like you mentioned I'm a little concerned in the long run about the spring. There can be some heavy metals in the spring steel which would dissolve a bit in an acidic solution. Not sure rust is what you'll have to worry about as that (IIRC) requires oxygen.

I bet you that they would learn it and pig out tell the bottle was empty.

 

Honestly not massivly concerend about metals dissolveing into the tank. The spring is so small in this pump that it is almost non-exsistant. Worst case I am doseing metals into the tank that some of the expensive supplements add.

 

Well the one on the reef tank is holding up fine so far.

 

The one on the planted tank is makeing some odd sounds lately. I think either the battries are dieing or something got in the gearing. Going to swap batteries tomorrow if I remember to buy some when I am out. I have replacment parts from the pump I fried out playing with power supplies, so if it is something that fell in the gears I should be able to repair it.

 

P.S. - I have another doseing pump in the works for running my alk and calcium. It will work a bit more like a normal doseing pump. Shouldn't cost much more then this thing. Still waiting on parts to get here for the inital build. I shall keep you posted.