Sensors
sensors

Relatively inexpensive, transportable and deployable sensors are produced all over the world for a variety of analytes. Broadly defined, sensors respond to a physical or chemical property, providing an interpretable output. For our purposes, a main distinction of a sensor versus a sampler is that sensors do not require laboratory-based analyses, and provide outputs in near-real time. Though we often think of sensors as part of the electronics field, plenty of analog sensors have been available for decades. Common analog sensors include things like mercury thermometers and classic barometers. Common digital sensors include things like voltmeters. In Public Lab, we're interested in a broad variety of sensors, both analog and digital, designed for measuring chemical and physical properties in air or water. ###Air Sensors There are a ton of different air sensors on the market these days, with common analytes including carbon monoxide (e.g. smoke detectors), temperature, humidity, particulate matter, and more. Some of these sensors require a digital interface with a controller and data logger, others are analog. Please see more information [here](/wiki/air-sensors) and check out air sensors in the table below. Please add more sensors that you've used! [embed table] ###Water Sensors Water sensors are available for several analytes, such as salinity, pH, and depth. Like air sensors, water sensors may be digital or analog. Any digital water sensors that are meant to be deployed will require water-tight enclosures for the electronic components. Please see more information [here](/wiki/water-sensors), and check out and add more sensors to the table below. [embed table]...


Author Comment Last activity Moderation
cfastie "A pitot tube measures air pressure and uses fancy math to relate that to wind speed. I assume the ones on airplanes work better than the Rev P. " | Read more » about 7 years ago
warren "Yeah it reminds me of the things (pitons?) used to measure windspeed from the leading edge of an airplane. Uhhhhh bootstrapping? :-) " | Read more » about 7 years ago
cfastie "I decided not to drop into the rabbit hole of applying time series analysis to these data. There does appear to be some periodicity present, but I ..." | Read more » about 7 years ago
warren "Sorry to miss some of this as I was away last week, and just catching up again now. This looks really great! Sorry if I missed it, but were you abl..." | Read more » about 7 years ago
cfastie "I have a hypothesis about the different results obtained with two BME280 sensors on the flying rig. A difference of 3° to 4°C is more than should b..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
cfastie "Yes, the newer Rev. P sensor works better in high wind because it has a strong heater so the wind can't cool it off too fast. But the older Rev C s..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
warren "Hi, Chris - this is so great. I had just been talking with folks at NASA Globe and the AREN project about wanting to test a datalogger with one of ..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
cfastie "A running mean of the aerial wind speed looks like a very reasonable result. The red line is a running mean of 10 observations (which were six seco..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
cfastie "The Mini Pearl Logger in the compost pile stopped logging today when the battery voltage dropped too low. Four AAA eneloops ran the logger for 13.5..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
cfastie "I checked on the Mini Pearl logger in the compost pile today and swapped SD cards. It was still logging after 7.5 days, so that's a new record. I n..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
EdMallon "I found that pulling up the three lines usually helps the cards sleep faster. Unfortunately this is completely controlled by the sd controller circ..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
cfastie "Thanks Ed, I disabled the LEDs and deployed the Mini Pearl Logger in the compost pile again. The batteries lasted 6.5 days instead of 2.3 days. So..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
EdMallon "I almost fell over laughing at the name of this post (and am a bit jealous that I did not think of it...) Your logger should be running for much lo..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
cfastie "Ah, I see. Those keywords, DATE and TIME, refer to the time the sketch was compiled and are saved on the Arduino until a new sketch is loaded. Tha..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
zoomx "As cfastie noticed this line RTC.adjust(DateTime((DATE), (TIME))); reset the RTC to the same time every... time the setup is fired that's because ..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
cfastie "That would be terrific if a ferrite bead eliminated the noise I was seeing. My impression was that the bead was protection against radio frequency ..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
pdhixenbaugh "I know that USB cables sometimes come with a barrel on them that's designed to reduce electrical interference, but I forget what it's called (I had..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
cfastie "Thanks Ed, It's good to know there is hope for the Nano. That's an excellent thread you linked to. I might try removing the LED resistor and the r..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
EdMallon "That lack of alarm is pretty irritating considering that the 1337 has them built in, and they could have simply used that chip instead. Watchdog ti..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
xose "Amazing! I'll definitely give it a try ;) " | Read more » over 7 years ago
cfastie "Xose, Thanks for pointing to those Grove I2C hubs. I had been pondering how to fork the I2C line. Here is my attempt to make an I2C hub from male h..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
cfastie "I figured out what I was doing wrong with the real time clock. This line in a sketch: RTC.adjust(DateTime((__DATE__), (__TIME__))); will set t..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
cfastie "A nice thing about DuPont jumper wires is that each wire has a separate connector. So pin pitch does not matter (if it is at least 0.1 inch, the Ar..." | Read more » over 7 years ago
warren "I love that Grove sells premade wires of different lengths with those connectors on them. Are the pin "pitches" (isn't that what you call the spaci..." | Read more » over 7 years ago