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dust counter

Last update: Thu Jun 5 22:25:40 2025
I found these 5USD dust sensor (counter is a big word in fact) on eBay and tried it. Since I do woodworking as a second hobby, having a sensor to make sure I'm now brownlungig myself into pneumonia. So one stone two birds.

Presentation

Principle

That cheap module has a IR led and sensor that is calibrated to return a voltage that is function of the volume of dust in the air. I put a small led bar in front since I'm not interrested by the value, an indication of the air quality is enough for me.

Points of interrest

  • The usage of that small sensor
    • The rest is pretty much ballpark, no additional challenge.

    Implementation

    Bill of materials

  • GP2Y1010AU0F Compact Optical Dust Sensor Smoke Particle Sensor
  • DMC16117A 16x1 LCD with strange behavior
  • An Arduino because I have too much of them

    • GP2Y1010AU0F Dust Sensor how to use

    Pinout
    On mine, the connector wire colors are (looking at the plug on the sensor, wires bottom, left to right):
  • White: V-LED
  • Blue: LED-GND => GND
  • Green: LED
  • Yellow: S-GND
  • Black: V0
  • Red: VCC

    • The dust sensor wiring schema from the doc
    Voltage to dust density approximation

    Datasheet vs. homemade approximation
    I decided to use 2 linear approximations, using 5V:
  • The blue one Y = 6 X + 0.6
  • The orange one Y = 0.5 X + 3.25
    • And use one or the other depending where you are: 
    
/* Takes the voltage (in V) read and return the dust density based on the graph provided in the Datasheet
 */
float voltage2DustDensity (float pVoltage) {
  if (pVoltage <= 0.6) {
    return 0;
  }
  if (pVoltage <= 3.4) {
    /*
     linear regression calulated from key values at (v=0.6 dust=0) and (v=3 dust=0.4)
     x = (y  - b) / a
    */
    return (pVoltage - 0.6)/6.0;  
  }

  /*
   voltage > 3.4 same with [0.5;3.5] and [0.8;3.65]
   x = (y  - b) / a
   */
  return (pVoltage - 3.25)/0.5;  
}

    Schematics

    Follow the schematic from the datasheet for the Dust sensor. The board is a WordClock board because it was proper in term of size. The Led bar is linked via a bunch of 1k ohm resistors to pins 27 to 15 (arduino A4 to 9), and the Dust sensor pin connected to A5 for reading and 8 (arduino) for driving the LED.

    Source code

    It's an arduino script because I was too lazy to write it properly in C in Atmel Studio. Code is here on GitHub.

    Pictures



    Mounted on its holder, backk has a scavended Liion battery, a Liion charger and a boost converter to 5v

    Links

    Helpful sources

    People who had problem with this LCD:
  • https://softsolder.com/2009/05/24/arduino-liquidcrystal-library-vs-old-hd44780-lcd-controller/
  • http://micom.hamazo.tv/e2662756.html
    • People who had problem with the dust sensor:
  • http://arduinodev.woofex.net/2012/12/01/standalone-sharp-dust-sensor/
  • http://www.arduino.org/learning/tutorials/boards-tutorials/sharp-dust-sensor-gp2y1010au
  • Datasheet on Sparkfun

    • Inspiration
    All content on this site is shared under the MIT licence (do what u want, don't sue me, hat tip appreciated)
    electrogeek.tokyo ~ Formerly known as Kalshagar.wikispaces.com and electrogeek.cc (AlanFromJapan [2009 - 2025])