Building a DIY Centrifuge For Blood Processing

If you want to do certain types of lab work with blood, you’ll need a centrifuge. It’s often possible to find serviceable units on the used market, but they may …. Building a DIY Centrifuge For Blood Processing.

It’s often possible to find serviceable units on the used market, but they may not meet your requirements if you’re doing something quite specific. For that reason, [Thomas Nguyen] decided to build his own centrifuge from scratch. His goal was to separate T cells from blood for further lab analysis, and he needed to be able to work with blood in 15 mL conical tubes.

Capable centrifuges weren’t affordable, but he figured he could build his own quite easily. To that end, he enlisted a Raspberry Pi Pico, a 3D printer, and an A2212 brushless motor with a 30 amp electronic speed controller. Soon enough, he had a design for a fixed-angle centrifuge design that could spin up blood products to the required speed for separation.

It has useful safety features, like an MPU-6050 for vibration detection to shut down in case of dangerous imbalance, and an IR sensor for monitoring and controlling rotational speed.