Pump Lifecycle Tester and Analysis

My first big project in automation was building a lifecycle tester for condensate pumps at Diversitech.

In order to validate the warranty period and catch unexpected behaviors on new products, I worked with a team to build an accelerated testing rack to measure pump performance. This rack uses multiple off-the-shelf sensors, a Python script to parse the data, and then store the data in a SQL database for analysis. We then wrote separate Python programs to query the MySQL and analyze each pump’s data.

Since this tester was built from the ground up, all the sensor enclosures were designed and 3D printed in ABS. I also built, or personally assisted in building, 3 of the 4 racks currently in use, and regularly maintain the sensors, PCB’s, Arduinos, or build new ones for all the testers as needed. I gained a wealth of knowledge about building and soldering PCB’s with surface mounted components, writing Python programs, and using API’s to access MySQL databases. Additionally, I got some brief database management experience with making sure that we could manage a massive table with millions of entries.