Rapsberry Pi Air Quality Station

For some months we have been reading about this sensor made by Niccoló Rigacci >
https://www.rigacci.org/wiki/doku.php/doc/appunti/hardware/raspberrypi_air

airpi_components

Currently Niccoló is collaborating with the Aerocene Foundation to incorporate into our Aerocene Explorer Kit bottle.

We are exploring possibilities of how each Aerocene Explorer kit could also be a potential tool to measure the quality of the air around us.

airpi-calendarairpi-dashboardairpi-graph

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Hi! I get involved in Aerocene thanks to @Joaquin, Alice and othe people, which contacted me and sent an Aerocene Kit to start experimenting!

My first goal is to attach and interface the following devices to the Raspberry Pi (v2 model B):

  • Two BME280 pressure/temperature/humidity sensor
  • One Adafruit GPS module
  • One PMS5003 particulate matter sensor
  • One Miuzei Raspberry Pi Camera Module
  • The solar battery
  • The WiFi dongle

I ask if there is somewhere a discussion about the features to be implemented into the Aerocene Raspberry Pi Kit, if there is already a software repositori, etc. Let me know where to read any previous thinking, brainstorming, etc. before to start coding!

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I upload some photos, the Aerocene Kit is coming to life!
The cable to connect the PMS5003 sensor to the USB to serial adapter:

The Kit assembled, on the balcony of my house!

And finally we can read the GPS position and the particulate sensor!

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Hi @RigacciOrg - this is really fantastic!

What made you choose the PMS5003? And, is there a way to access the GPRS and PM data as numbers rather than image? Would be great, but no worries if not!

Here are some online sources you might find useful…

  1. http://aerocene.org/exploration-tools/
  2. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/563b471be4b075afff1ac485/t/5887aeb4d482e972dd5dabdc/1485287213982/170124_how+to+build+the+Aerocene+Exploration+tools.pdf
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Hi @camilla! I choosed the PMS5003 several months ago (beginning of 2017) because I was searching a low-cost sensor, available on eBay or Aliexpress. I read some comparisions on air quality sensors on Sensing the Air Quality: Research on Air Quality Sensors, then I choosed the PMS5003. After more than one year of continous use I’m quite satisfied, despite the wear-off of the sensor is quite sensible. Infact the PM level reading is rather changed from the working sensor and the one that I keep only for reference. I’m working on the calibration algorithm, to maintain normalized read across time.
In my implementation (Raspberry Pi project, called AirPi) the reading are stored into a SQLite database, exportable as CSV files, sent across the internet via HTTP, MQTT and SNMP protocols.

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@camilla, I read the pdf manual of the Aerocene Exploration tools, very nice! Fortunately I got the Kit with the soldering already made. I whish just suggest to better explain the images 26-30, at a first glance it was not clear that it was referring at the PCB track, to cut and solder; I was seeing just two letters “HI” instead of the drawing of the tracks :slight_smile: !!! May be picture 26 should show clearly that the “HI” is a close-up, using an arrow or a magnifying glass.

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