Fluicell AB is a Swedish high-tech company with a groundbreaking track record in single-cell technologies.
Fluicell precision microfluidics controller
Fluicell AB
Flow controller system design from idea to manufactuing
Our goal is to provides the microfluidic flow control system for Fluicell team to companion their sophisticated microfluidics pipettes. We had to design complex electromechanical system with highest quality standards in mind to please the sciencetific community with well crafted usable tool.
Resulting system is scalable and highly customizable and enables to control up to 8 channels, from -300mbar to 450mbar with less then 1% accuracy. We are also the manufacturing partner for Fluicell during the whole lifecycle of the product.
We used STM32 ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller to run all the control theory and USB communications. Here are some of the technical complexities that had to overcome:
- Efficient control theory to prolong the lifetime of pump motors and membranes while reducing the noise
- Mechanics that is easy to assemble and where all critical components are field-maintainable
- RS485 extendability options
- Full product life-cycle planning to make sure BOM has long and stable availability and hardware and software revision history is well maintained
Impact
Fluicell and ScienceMosaic have been partnering for years and iterated through different technologies and use-cases to find the optimal feature-set, complexity and manufacturability. With the latest hardware revision we were able to cut the size and weight of the setup 50% and also double the pressure holding accuracy to 2mbar.