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glass and electronic

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Hannah:
Hi evryone, I am a student glassblower and am looking for some advice about a project I am on. My plan is to create a vessel that has rings around the outside that when I place a test tube into the ring it sets off a trigger and a water pump goes off on a timer. I am a beginner at the whole electrical side and although this may be complex i am looking forwards to learning and getting this to work. So far i have an arduino, a solenoid valve(NC), a peristltic pump and a very basic understanding of what to do. any advice, no matter how complex will be greatly appreciated. thank you!!  ;D

Andy Chee:
Is there anything unusual about this proposed vessel with rings?

For example, will this vessel be heated?  chilled?  contain corrosive liquids?  or does the vessel have an unusual shape?  what material is the vessel made from?

Your trigger could be anything from a microswitch, magnetic reed switch, ultrasonic range detector, to video camera.

The more details about your proposed setup, the better and more specific advice we can give.

The Arduino timer is by far the simplest and most obvious part of this project.  A timer program is trivial to implement on an Arduino.  The wiring to the pump should also be relatively simple, but will need details on the pump specifications.

Hannah:
Hi Andy, thanks for your reply. to answer your questions, theres not much unusual about the vessel and rings. nothing will be getting heated up or chilled or and corrosive liquids just water. every thing is made form clear furnace glass.  i have put up a sketch of what i am hoping it will look like.
the pump is a peristaltic pump that takes 12 V and 5w. hope this helps, any more questions i will answer to the best of my knowledge.
Thanks

inse:
I cannot imagine any other solution than to mount microswitches to sense the presence of the test tubes.
But there are two problems: you will have to route wires along the vessel and the only way to mount anything to the glass is glueing and that may be neither reliable nor aesthetical.
I don’t have experience with image recognition, but that’s probably beyond arduino capability

I wanted a rude username:
Adding to Andy's excellent overview, you might want to step back and consider whether this could be an XY problem. That is, we can help you with the electronic side of such a device, but is the overall idea for the device itself the best solution to your project? Some related questions:


* Do lab technicians actually like rings for retaining test tubes?
* What do test tube holders normally look like, and why do they look like that?
* How would the rings or other holders be attached to the vessel?
* Glass vessels normally don't have steel set into them, why is that?
* What are the ergonomic implications of having test tubes distributed around the vessel instead of in a rack?
* How will the vessel be held: by clamps, a stand?
Of course, none of this is to suggest you shouldn't do it the way you've envisioned it. Your drawing has a lovely aesthetic to it, which laboratory glassware often lacks. This is more of an engineer's perspective ... asking the question, is the device something that the end users would actually enjoy?

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