Reactor Overflowing

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November 15, 2021 at 1:13 pm #1368
lachlan
Participant
Hi, I’m hoping you can help me with an issue I had last week. I have 5 reactors running on a control board, and during the run last week one of them was pumping out slower that pumping in and so filled up and overflowed. I have a few questions about this.

1. Is there something you can suggest for trouble shooting so this doesn’t happen again? It was still pumping out when I manually switched it on so there wasn’t a blockage and I’m running the code as written, haven’t modified that at all. I thought the chunk in RegulateOD:
```
    if(sysData[M]['Experiment']['cycles']%5==1): #Every so often we do a big output pump to make sure tubes are clear.
        sysData[M]['Pump2']['target']=0.25*sysData[M]['Pump2']['direction']
```
would cover any mismatch between fluid in/waste out , but didn’t seem to be doing it’s job.

2. I thought the silver tracks were a failsafe to turn things off if they got wet. This overflowed for a while, someone only saw after it was making a puddle on the bench underneath. Should the tracks be turning the system off if they are wet during the run? Or is it just during setup? I’m hoping to do some longer runs and just leave them going over the weekend but obviously could be a problem if they overflow and the internals get wet/rusted.

Thanks,

Lachlan
November 16, 2021 at 8:50 am #1369

harrison
Keymaster

Hi Lachlan,

1. The issue is likely that the pump is making a very poor seal on the tube. To fix this there are instructions in the manual for how to put some extra tape inside the pump head to make it “tighter”. Have you done this? Basically the issue arises from poor manufacturing tolerances on the pump head, so we have been using this to improve them where needed.

2. I am surprised the silver tracks did not turn it off. Generally people find these are TOO sensitive to moisture, rather than missing it entirely. Was the liquid leaking directly onto them, or somehow avoiding it? One possibility is there might be a wiring fault on that reactor. To test such a thing I would recommend starting a blank experiment (e.g. just put a test tube with some water in), press “Start” on the interface, then DELIBERATELY short the tracks with a piece of metal or other conductive item to check that indeed it crashes the software (can take up to 30 seconds or something for it to trigger).
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