3 ms·

I was thinking of running one of these in our garden - just to get an idea of how bad it is https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/pms5003-particulate-matter-senso

I was thinking of running one of these in our garden - just to get an idea of how bad it is https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/pms5003-particulate-matter-sensor-with-cable#description https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/pms5003-particulate-matte...

dia80 7y ago
I don't think it's that bad in your garden... I ran a foobot at home when we had our son. Air quality in the house was good a mile or two from central london and a few hundred meters from a big road. Looking at the pollution maps the pollution is extremely concentrated along big roads and even a short distance (10s of meters) away it's not so bad.
- arethuza 7y ago
  When we lived in the centre of Edinburgh (which probably isn't even that polluted compared to London) I was amazed at how dirty the white paintwork on windows would get in relatively short time periods. Now we live out in a rural area and its very noticeable how cleaner windows and paintwork are - the same also applies to our lungs!
- lifeisstillgood 7y ago
  >>> I don't think it's that bad in your garden... I ran a foobot You know a part of me did think you were about to say you had been monitoring the air in my garden, and given Facebook, Snowden, Russia, NSA and various Acts of Parliament I would not have been that surprised by one more person watching me :-)
amirathi 7y ago
Can someone attest to accuracy of PMS5003? P.S - These are pretty cheap on AliExpress - http://bit.ly/2XoW0is http://bit.ly/2XoW0is
- edejong 7y ago
  Alright, after having done some research on effective, long-term measurement of air quality, I am here to give you some bad news. Your sensors are going to break. Depending on the environment and the mode of operation of the sensor, you'll see between a one month and one year lifespan. Why? Exactly because of the thing you want to measure: dust, oil particulates, water vapour and chemical reactions will quickly deteriorate the accuracy of the sensors. To properly protect them you will need at least a moisture trap and some kind of air pump to get a constant flow of air through your sensor. You most likely also want to filter out large particulates (if you're interested in sub 2.5 micrometer measurements). That said, you can [1] get quite accurate readings from the sensors within their specified operation environment (sub 80% Relative Humidity). [1] https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/10/2/41/pdf-vor https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/10/2/41/pdf-vor

dia80 7y ago

I don't think it's that bad in your garden... I ran a foobot at home when we had our son. Air quality in the house was good a mile or two from central london and a few hundred meters from a big road. Looking at the pollution maps the pollution is extremely concentrated along big roads and even a short distance (10s of meters) away it's not so bad.

arethuza 7y ago
When we lived in the centre of Edinburgh (which probably isn't even that polluted compared to London) I was amazed at how dirty the white paintwork on windows would get in relatively short time periods. Now we live out in a rural area and its very noticeable how cleaner windows and paintwork are - the same also applies to our lungs!
lifeisstillgood 7y ago
>>> I don't think it's that bad in your garden... I ran a foobot You know a part of me did think you were about to say you had been monitoring the air in my garden, and given Facebook, Snowden, Russia, NSA and various Acts of Parliament I would not have been that surprised by one more person watching me :-)

amirathi 7y ago

Can someone attest to accuracy of PMS5003? P.S - These are pretty cheap on AliExpress - http://bit.ly/2XoW0is http://bit.ly/2XoW0is

edejong 7y ago
Alright, after having done some research on effective, long-term measurement of air quality, I am here to give you some bad news. Your sensors are going to break. Depending on the environment and the mode of operation of the sensor, you'll see between a one month and one year lifespan. Why? Exactly because of the thing you want to measure: dust, oil particulates, water vapour and chemical reactions will quickly deteriorate the accuracy of the sensors. To properly protect them you will need at least a moisture trap and some kind of air pump to get a constant flow of air through your sensor. You most likely also want to filter out large particulates (if you're interested in sub 2.5 micrometer measurements). That said, you can [1] get quite accurate readings from the sensors within their specified operation environment (sub 80% Relative Humidity). [1] https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/10/2/41/pdf-vor https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/10/2/41/pdf-vor