Hacker Spaces

Toxic Gas Sensors

Those of you who have been to the /tmp/lab may have experienced the delicate smells of the nearby chemical factory.

We want to learn more about this pollution, so we will implement an automated measurement system.

To monitor the air concentration of pollutants, we use cheap sensors made by a company called Figaro. The models used are TGS2600 and TGS2602; the same are used by the FridaV project. The TGS2600 measures contaminants such as hydrogen and carbon monoxide, while the TGS2602 detects ammonia and hydrogen sulfide (that we think is responsible for the occasional foul smells at the lab).

The outputs of these sensors is digitized and sent to an advanced Arduino called Fonera. It even has 802.11! And it can run Linux! Those features of this Arduino for experts (we hope we will be still able to use it despite our little DIY skills) make it perfect to post automatically the results on the web, by using the popular Twitter for example.

We are thinking about using a SPI analog to digital converter, as the Arduino hardware seems to be able to handle it.

More to come soon, check out the wiki page.

One Reply to “Toxic Gas Sensors”

  1. […] We have started experimenting with the air pollution sensors. […]

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