DustSensor
| Project Dust Sensor | |
|---|---|
| |
| Experiments with a dust sensor | |
| Status | Initializing |
| Contact | bertrik |
| Last Update | 2017-12-03 |
Introduction
I ordered a dust sensor module to perform measurements of airborne dust. In particular, I ordered this one, the Plantronics PMS 7003. It's being advertised as an advanced generation of dust sensor (7th generation), while still reasonably priced. It uses lasers to perform the measurement and I think it contains a small fan to move the air around.
Hardware
Data sheets can be found:
The module takes 5V to run and communicates using 3.3V levels.
It attempts to make an estimate of the number of particles per size category. It also gives an estimate of the total mass of the particles.
I plan to connect this thing up using an ESP8266.
Software
This module outputs its data as a 32-byte serial data stream at 9600 bps.
The protocol is that the stream starts with a specific begin marker byte, then a length byte, then the actual data, a checksum and finally an end marker byte. I think it is a good match to use a simple finite state machine to parse the stream and synchronise to the data.
References
- a nice list of sensors from "samen meten aan luchtkwaliteit".
- another nice overview of dust sensors.