A Simple DIY Vacuum Pick & Place Hack

[Jon Chandler]

While pondering how to best build a vacuum pick & place tool, I wondered if anyone had every converted a nebulizer for the task.  A nebulizer is used by asmatics and others with breathing difficulties to inhale medications – basically, it's a low pressure, low volume air pump and they can be frequently found at thrift stores around here for a few bucks.

My search didn't discover anyone who had done this, but had a lot of results for "nebulizer/vacuum pumps."  Turns out that the heart of a nebulizer is just a diaphram air pump that's perfectly happy pumping air or drawing a vacuum!

To convert a nebulizer to a vacuum pump for pick & place, all you have to do is swap the hoses at the connector ports inside the box – literally a five minute job.

The details of the system I built are shown here.  I added a simple filter to the suction line to prevent ingesting crap into the pump and built a handpiece from a BIC pen body.

[Mike Warren]

I converted a fish pump 10 years ago and it's still working fine. I just reversed the valve rubbers so it sucks instead of blowing. Really cheap and easy.

[Orpheus]

A Reynolds Handi-Vac (a phaser-looking hand held vacuum for their proprietary valved zipper bags) draws a surprising vacuum --- down to a few tenths of a psi end pressure. That's as good as perfect for suction applications. I don't know what they cost now (or if they've downrated its performance), but I grabbed a bunch at $8 when they first came out, just a few years ago.

I cut the tip off its small side-ported plastic outlet to make it end-ported, slip some polyethylene tubing over that, leading into a hole (and suitable fitting) in the lid of glass jar (to act as a "vacuum capacitor" for smoother output), with a second fitting in the jar lid as my vacuum "output". The set-up has proven itself quite versatile over the years.

The great thing about vacuum is that (unlike pneumatic/hydraulic pressure), it's self-limiting. You rarely have to worry about your fittings/vessels unless you need HIGH vacuum. Any food product jar normally sits indefinitely at (perfect vacuum + vapor pressure of water) so the few extra Pa of even a perfect vacuum wouldn't stress it appreciably.

No other food-sealer vac I've tried, whether wall- or battery-powered, has come close to The Reynolds' terminal vacuum, though wall powered units have higher throughput, which can be a big benefit if you don't need every last PSI, because (as I configure it) you have to suck all the air out of the jar ("charge the vacuum capacitor") at the start of each session (use a small jar!)

[JuKu]

Also, what made a huge improvement to my setup was to get a vacuum relay (from a local aquarium shop) and a foot switch toggle. No stray vacuum (full release) and no hand movement when releasing.