Laboratory grade peristaltic pumps are unbelievably expensive. A variable speed pump drive from Masterflex (Cole Parmer) will cost $1000-$5000. Don't forget to add another $200-$1500 for the pump head. Watson Marlow and Thermo Scientific sell similar products but they are just as expensive. Fortunately, there is an alternative.
The Chinese competition
Leadfluid makes a range of peristaltic pumps that are less expensive than the MasterFlex equivalents. Despite not being able to find any reviews, I took a gamble and ordered a couple Leadfluid BT100S drives with YK15 pump heads from AliExpress. The pumps were $570 CAD each and cost $100 to ship. These two pumps were approximately the same price as one MasterFlex 'economy drive' with an easy-load pump head but came with a lot more features.
The BT100S includes a LCD display and keypad. Drives with these features start at $1500 from Cole Parmer. The ability to select the exact speed of the drive, between 0-150 RPM, is a very nice feature. The 'economy drives' have an adjustable knob that requires more trial-and-error to calibrate and seem to occasionally rotate on their own during experiments. On the back, there is a control port, 90mm exhaust fan, power switch and standard PC power cable port. These pumps also have a software timing mode where you can set the running time, interval time and number of cycles. The YZ15 pump head is very similar to the 'MasterFlex L/S Easy-Load II Head for Precision Tubing'. They both have a similar mechanism and use tubing sized 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 25.
Initial testing, warranty and support
To test the new pumps, I ran them at 150 RPM for approximately 12 hours. The only issue was some minor wear on the size 16 tubing. This isn't that surprising given the high RPM and length of the test.
The manual can be difficult to understand at times and I haven't been able to decipher the warranty:
The manual can be difficult to understand at times and I haven't been able to decipher the warranty:
The product has guarantee period as one year. But during the guarantee period, the company would be not responsible for the warranty, if the product has the improper operation of the man-made damage. Over the guarantee period, only the material and labor costs will be charged at cost price.
I wanted to disable the backlight on the LCD since we'll be working with light sensitive fish. In the settings menu, turning down the brightness actually changed the contrast. I contacted support and they instructed me to unplug the P3 connector from the display circuit board. The procedure was straightforward and the internal components were tidier than I expected. Although the warranty is a bit confusing, the technical support I received was great.
Conclusion
Overall, I'm impressed with these pumps. They are approximately 1/3 the price of a comparable MasterFlex pump and 1/2 the price of the cheapest MasterFlex offering. The LeadFluid warranty might be worse than the competitors but the savings make it hard to justify purchasing anything else. My only complaint with these pumps is the manual. Some sections are fine but others are gibberish (see the warranty section above). But once you get the pumps configured, the lousy manual isn't much of an issue.
Still not cheap enough?
If you're into DIY and wanted some peristaltic pumps for even less, you could build your own. An Arduino microcontroller (or similar) can control a pump head with DC motor to make an extremely cheap peristaltic pump.