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MooonRatII, A Tote-Size Portable Incubator for Rapid Field Work

Aliases used by other developers include Moonrat, Rice MiniCubator, and Rice Petri FI.
MoonratII is the development effort of 2023.
Visit the Legacy folder (above) for the work of volunteers prior to 2023 and the hand built prototype.

Status, September 2024

Prototypes of the MoonratII were field tested in two locations - the Galapagos Islands by researcher Auja TK and in Tanzania by Dr. Robert Read. A HardwareX scientific research paper is slated for October 2024 publication.

Status, April 2024

The MoonRatII team has produced five Printed Circuit Assemblies (Control and Heater) of the Rev 1 PWB for use by the USA team.
The MoonRatII team has produced five Printed Circuit Assemblies (Control and Heater) of the Rev 2 PWB for use by Mexico team. Enclosure design for the Controller Assembly is underway. Rev 3 PWB TBA.

Current Design Summary

In one schematic and PCB, we have developed a "Control Assembly" and a "Heater Assembly".
The Control Assembly will be in an enclosure detachable from the incubation chamber.
The Heater Assembly will be mounted internal to the incubation assembly and in addition to providing current to a heating pad or pads has a PCB mounted temperature sensor.
A third component, a rechargeable battery with its recharging station, will complete a MoonRatII incubator system.

2023 MoonRatII Design

Fundamental Modularity: The 6-wire appliance

The connections from the controller to the heater needs only 6 wires:

  1. GND (ground, nominally voltage 0.)
  2. +12V PWR (the heating elements requires approximately 12V power.)
  3. HEAT ON (Vin)
  4. +5V (for the thermometer).
  5. SIG -- data from the digital "one-wire" format
  6. UNK - a final wire is included for future functionality that is unknown right now. It is connected as a redundant ground in Rev 1 and Rev 2.

These (esp. the power) should probably be rated for 2 amps, but in practice 1 amp is probably good enough.

Initial Design Approach Block Diagram

From the 2020 design.
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5296671/86680945-b470ad80-bfc4-11ea-9ef6-19c4f70aceba.png
Basic Structure of Portable Incubator (1)

Motivation

By building a small, portable, intelligent incubator that can maintain constant elevated temperature, a variety of biological experiments and assays can be performed "in the field" without having access to a electric grid power.

Origin

This is an offshoot of the Rapid E. coli project. It is an attempt to build a better, smaller, more intelligent portable incubator that the Armadillo, described elsewhere and buildable from an instructable.

References (Incomplete)

  1. Petrifilms: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/ECOLICT-3M-Petrifilm-E-coli-Coliform-Count-Plates/?N=5002385+3293785155&rt=rud
  2. EPA Guidelines: https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-11/documents/drinking_water_sample_collection.pdf
  3. Original Incubator Paper - http://jhe.ewb.org.au/index.php/jhe/article/view/127
  4. Construction of a Low-cost Mobile Incubator for Field and Laboratory Use https://www.jove.com/t/58443/construction-low-cost-mobile-incubator-for-field-laboratory
  5. Solar Powered Portable Culture Incubator https://www.jscimedcentral.com/Pediatrics/pediatrics-3-1063.pdf

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Dr. Sabia Abidi of Rice University for input and references.

MoonratII Team

Melanie Laporte

Silvia Castillas

Harshit Kumar

Enrique Ruiz

Horacio Garcia

F. Lee Erickson

Robert L. Read of Public Invention


Updated by F. Lee Erickson, 20240424