Arduino Environmental Monitoring

Project showcase

Components and supplies

Arduino Mega 2560 & Genuino Mega 2560

Can Replace Mega/CC3000 with this and a dedicated ADC. Plus Secure SSL !

Adafruit Pressure/Altitude/Temperature Sensor

Output : Pa

Various Gas Sensors (HANWEI)

Output : 0-1024 ADC values. Only using for danger thresholds, not accurate values.

Adafruit Humidity and Temperature Sensor

Output : °C and RH (%)

AMS-TAOS TSL2561 Luminosity Sensor

Output : lux (lm/m²)

SparkFun (Texas Instruments, SFE) CC3000 WiFi Breakout

Better than using another Serial Channel and buffers and all that jazz, I guess.

Sharp GP2Y1010AU0F Dust Sensor

Output : µg/m³

Samyoung DSM501A Dust Sensor

Output : µg/m³

Lapis Semiconductor ML8511 UV-B Sensor

Output : mW/cm²

Necessary tools and machines

Soldering iron (generic)

No need to explain this :P

Hot glue gun (generic)

Prevents wobbly capacitors, I guess ?

Apps and online services

Microsoft Azure

Free Developer Benefits subscription ($25/mo).

Microsoft Visual Studio 2015

Unity, Unreal, Arduino (Visual Micro), WPF, WinForms, WHATEVER, I'll always be using it. And it's free!

Arduino IDE

Works good when you want to edit a single line and don't want to load Visual Studio

Fritzing

Gonna replace with Upverter

Syncfusion Controls

Free unlike Telerik Controls, works good enough (a little slow though, but it's free.)

Xamarin

Courtesy of DreamSpark. Not actually using it, but planning to. C# FTW.

Upverter

better than Fritzing, I realized halfway through the project.

About this project

About

This project consists of an Arduino, a UWP app and an Azure service.

Arduino sends all it's data over HTTP to the app service instance, which stores it in a database (easy tables), and the records are retreived on the UWP app using the app service SDK.

Since my AVR based mega was too slow for TLS and didn't have space for a certificate, I had to settle on HTTP.

I considered using MQTT - but I didn't find any well documented broker written in C#, then looked at CoAP, when I realized, app service was only intended for HTTP traffic on port 80 and 443.

Json is not the most efficient data transport, seems like a crazy way to do it. But it meets the target performance and also shows that there is always a quick hack for everything..

If you are experience enough then you can set it all up (minus the sensors, etc) in less than 6 hours, because using "easy tables" is really easy (since it has a http api) and using the SDK for a UWP app (with a wonderful language like C#) is easy too.. And you won't have to deal with marshalling and all since the json libraries on the arduino and .net are both easy to use, allowing for a flexible schema..

The App

Fetching essential weather data. I could fetch the Gas Sensor data as well, but that is useless unless I start processing data in ppm which will require more sampling than the Mega can handle and lab calibration too.

The Parts

All the electronic modules required for this project.

Arduino Mega 2560 (with USB taped because shield has flaw which shorts VCC and GND of port)

The sensor shield. Useful for external power, to drive those gas sensors, but I resorted to a DIY board.

One of the 9 gas sensors (MQ-2 pictured above)

Power supply - all of the electronics combined theoretically can use up to 2A, this one is rated for double of that !

SI7021 RHT sensor - Extremely accurate and fast enough

ML8511 UVB sensor - I know the soldering is horrible

My DIY poor man's PCB for the gas sensors.Made in hurry - none of them are not in continuity !

Poor man's PCB front view - with the LD33 regulator for 3V3 devices !

Misc. Pictures

1 : testing some of the components for first time

3. Look at that data ! (it's random() generated btw, I've not hooked up IIC sensors yet.

Legal

This project uses Microsoft trademarks under the Contest Rules which states:

You may include Microsoft trademarks, logos, and designs, for which Microsoft grants you a limited license to use for the sole purposes of submitting an entry into this Contest.

And for the rest:

This project documentation is licensed under CC0 (including all images except the images using Microsoft trademarks).

Code

Server codeJavaScript

WeatherDataItem.js

var table = module.exports = require('azure-mobile-apps').table();
table.columns =
{
	"err": "string",
	"mq2_max": "number", "mq2_min": "number", "mq2_avg": "number",
	"mq3_max": "number", "mq3_min": "number", "mq3_avg": "number",
	"mq4_max": "number", "mq4_min": "number", "mq4_avg": "number",
	"mq5_max": "number", "mq5_min": "number", "mq5_avg": "number",
	"mq6_max": "number", "mq6_min": "number", "mq6_avg": "number",
	"mq7_max": "number", "mq7_min": "number", "mq7_avg": "number",
	"mq8_max": "number", "mq8_min": "number", "mq8_avg": "number",
	"mq9_max": "number", "mq9_min": "number", "mq9_avg": "number",
	"mq135_max": "number", "mq135_min": "number", "mq135_avg": "number",
	"temperature_max": "number", "temperature_min": "number", "temperature_avg": "number",
	"humidity_max": "number", "humidity_min": "number", "humidity_avg": "number",
	"pressure_max": "number", "pressure_min": "number", "pressure_avg": "number",
	"uvb_max": "number", "uvb_min": "number", "uvb_avg": "number",
	"dust1_max": "number", "dust1_min": "number", "dust1_avg": "number",
	"dust_max": "number", "dust_min": "number", "dust_avg": "number",
	"dust25_max": "number", "dust25_min": "number", "dust25_avg": "number",
	"lux_avg": "number", "lux_max": "number", "lux_min": "number", "deviceId": "number"
}
table.dynamicSchema = true;

Main Repository

GitHub main repository, where I commit all of my code. You'll need a Xamarin sub for ArduinoEM.Android, though.

Schematics

Old Schematic

This is a rough schematic of how things are connected. View the Upverter schematic for latest schematic - it's easier to make new parts there than Fritzing. I WILL NOT UPDATE FRITZING REPO ANYMORE. Note : Only view schematic view; breadboard view and PCB view are a rat's nest !

Schematics on Fritzing.org

Fritzing OLD Schematic

Download

Exported as .png
To view with more detail, download the .fzz file from the fritzing project and view it in Fritzing (fritzing.org) - it's free !
I WILL NOT UPDATE FRITZING SCHEMATICS ANYMORE - MAKING NEW PARTS IS EASIER ON UPVERTER.

Latest Schematic

WORK IN PROGRESS : Latest schematic - it's easier to make schematics on Upverter than Fritzing. This project is not really viable on Fritzing's breadboard view or any PCB.

Comments

Author

Prajay Basu

2 projects
6 followers

Additional contributors

Azure and c# tutorials by Troy Hunt
Documentation on various breakout boards and libraries used in this project. by Adafruit Industries + ladyada
Documentation on various breakout boards and libraries used in this project. by Sparkfun Electronics
Arduino azure data upload code by Thomas Conté
Detailed data on inexpensive air quality monitoring and also for slope of sharp_dust_sensor by Chris Nafis
Arduinojson library. by Benoît Blanchon
Write_eeprom_string repository. by Bradford Needham
Si7021 library by jayjayuk@pjrc
Dsm501a library by richardhmm@github
Ms-iot sample code. by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
Sharp gp2y1010au library by Owen Kwon