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Other hardware

Besides the electroPioreactor itself, the project has thrown up a number of smaller pieces of open hardware, mostly because the part we needed either didn’t exist or cost more than the bioreactor.

  • OpenValve: a 3D-printable solenoid pinch valve. Designed by Harvey Mudd College’s clinic team (valve team files) and being looked at again by Gerrit at LabCrafter.
  • CO₂ transfer: regulators, needle valves and venting solenoids for the gas train, with premium and budget options priced up and what we learned about each. The £11 valve in the photo below does the job of a £99 one, with the compromises listed (it isn’t media-separated, sterilisable or food-certified).
  • Anode work by Harvey Mudd College’s anode team, and the clinic poster.
  • CO₂ sparger backflow: diagnosis and a revised-component fix by Eli Silver at Brown University’s Harris Lab. The short version: a closed solenoid traps CO₂, the CO₂ dissolves, and the medium gets sucked up the line.
  • Holders and small parts: the GL45 bottle holder, pinch slider and electrode top stop, all as OpenSCAD source and STLs.
  • Equipment notes from 2023: autoclaves, microscopes, DNA sequencing and the bioreactor survey that led us to the Pioreactor.
A small silver aluminium solenoid valve with a black coil, a transparent DIN plug and a loop of black cable, lying on a green cutting mat
A 3/2 venting solenoid. When it shuts off the CO₂ it opens the line to air, so nothing gets sucked back towards the vial. Photo: AMYBO, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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