Controlling 4 Peristaltic Pumps

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Cadaver
 
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Joined: Sun Oct 13, 2013 1:29 pm

Controlling 4 Peristaltic Pumps

Post by Cadaver »

Hello everyone,

I'm pretty new to building my own electronic circuits, but i've dabbled in a bit of coding in the past, and have a decent grasp of the concepts needed to finish this project, or so i hope.

I'm trying to create a nutrient doser for aquariums or hydroponics. I have 4 nutrients that i need to dispense, one at a time, through peristaltic pumps. I've purchased 4 of the pumps listed here: http://www.adafruit.com/products/1150. I've also got pH and Conductivity sensors from this website: https://www.atlas-scientific.com/ as well as the serial mux to use both at the same time with my raspberry pi.

I've been able to successfully write a program in python to read the pH and EC levels every couple seconds. My idea was to read the pH, and if too low, dispense 1ml of pH down, then move on to checking the EC. I then would like to check the EC sensor, and do the same thing, 1ml per pump at a time. To do this, i assume i need to hook each peristaltic pump to a separate GPIO pin and set it to high or low accordingly (on or off..) My problem lies in exactly how to hook up the peristaltic pumps, as i'm a bit of an electronics noob.

I've found this page here documenting how to control a 12V DC motor with a raspberry pi, which i assume i can swap motor, with peristaltic pump, since its also 12V dc: http://www.geekingabout.com/controlling ... -port.html

My question is, does anyone know how i can modify the above schematic to allow for 4 motors, each hooked up to a different GPIO? Or do i need to buy two L293D's instead?? http://www.adafruit.com/products/807

I've found it easy to find tutorials for hooking up one motor, but more than one is a bit hard to come by. :) Just want to make sure i'm not doing anything wrong here... ;)

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:11 am

Re: Controlling 4 Peristaltic Pumps

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

You can control 4 motors by replicating that same circuit on 4 different GPIO pins.
You only need an L293D if you need to reverse the motors. With dosing pumps, reversing is generally a bad idea.

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Blooey
 
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Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2014 7:50 am

Re: Controlling 4 Peristaltic Pumps

Post by Blooey »

I am most interested in your project. Have you completed it? Any chance for an update?

Cheers,
Blooey

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