Inflating a balloon using Arduino

Projects General Guidance
1

Hi,

I would like to control an air pump using an Arduino. More specifically, to inflate a balloon and control the rate and quantity of air going in and out of it. How could that be achieved, in a simple setup, and what kind of equipment would I need?

Thanks,
K

2

and what kind of equipment would I need?

Seems to me you've already decided that:

I would like to control an air pump using an Arduino.

How could that be achieved, in a simple setup

Turn the pump on. Run until the balloon explodes. Then, turn the pump off.

If exploding the balloon is not the goal, perhaps you should state what the goal is.

3

PaulS:
If exploding the balloon is not the goal, perhaps you should state what the goal is.

kampana:
More specifically, to inflate a balloon and control the rate and quantity of air going in and out of it.

4

kampana:
Hi,

I would like to control an air pump using an Arduino. More specifically, to inflate a balloon and control the rate and quantity of air going in and out of it. How could that be achieved, in a simple setup, and what kind of equipment would I need?

Thanks,
K

Not as simple as it might first seem. For sure you would need a pressure sensor that is sensing the pressure inside the balloon, most likely with a two tube filling fixture with one tube for filling/venting air and the other sensing the internal pressure .

As far as switching from filling, stopping, or venting to maintain a desired pressure, a simple pump on off control would be needed. If you really require venting then possibly a vent solenoid could be used in the filling tube,

I would think the biggest challenge is knowing ahead of time what is the desired pressure value going to be as each balloon style would have to be characterize to how much the desired finished pressure is.

Lefty

5

You need to give more details about what you're trying to achieve. There are lots of different ways of regulating and metering air flow and we need to know what you're trying to achieve to understand which approach would work best for you.

6

Thanks for all replies. I want to control balloon inflation using an external sensor. For instance - use input from a microphone to control the amount of air going into a very large balloon. Shouting into the mic will inflate the balloon according to input level, while being silent will let the air out slowly. So basically, a system that could regulate air and convert input coming from whatever sensor into air, in specified pressure.

I know that there exist balloon inflation machines (e.g.: Balloon Inflator Machine | Balloon Invitations Pictures) - so perhaps it would be easier to try and interface with one of those instead of building my own setup?

7

going into a very large balloon.

how large ?

8

I imagine the pressure increase flattening out as the balloon gets inflated. that will make using pressure sensors very hard. Perhaps measuring the resonance frequency is a better way to go.

9

It seems to me that what you need for that is a sound pressure level sensor that the Arduino can read. When sound is detected it applies the corresponding amount of power to a pump/blower, probably controlled by PWM. When no sound is detected, a valve is opened to allow the air to leak out. The only hard parts would be choosing the pump/blower hardware and then deciding how to power and control it electrically.