The 3 GP2Y1010AU0F Compact Optical Dust Sensors arrived in the mail the other day.  These are air quality sensors that use IR to detect fine particles and smoke in the air.  I’ll be using them with my sensor helmet to detect air pollution and plot the results on a map or overlay the readings on my action camera video.  They are smaller than I envisioned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sparkfun sells them but they were out of stock.  I managed to find them on eBay for $8 each, plus they included the cable.  Well, the cable included was wrong.  The sensors take a 6 conductor 1.5mm spaced connector, they shipped me a 3 conductor 1.5mm spaced connector.  I did a search online and found out some information about the pinning.  This website appears to have the wires soldered on the back end of the connector.  Not sure if I really want to do that, seems kind of risky to the board.

To my relief, I found this website that had a parts list.  Lo and behold, that’s exactly what I need.  Digikey sells them for about $1.50 each.  I’m going to scrap the idea of soldering wires in desperation.

Besides finding some details about the sensor, pinout, and cable to get, I found great references for code.  It’s helpful to have some help along the way.  With the cornucopia of sensors going into the helmet, having a clear understanding of the code is a must.  It’s already going to be a challenge getting all of this stuff to fit in the helmet.  On top of that, fitting the code into the Pro Mini will also be a feat yet to be done.