
Building an Air-Quality Monitor
Build a traffic-light air-quality monitor. An MQ-135 sensor responds to smoke, fumes, alcohol, CO2 and other gases; the Arduino compares the reading to clean air and lights a green, yellow or red LED for good, moderate or poor air. A hands-on way to watch indoor air change — with the honest limit that it shows RELATIVE quality, not a calibrated ppm figure.
Imiyalelo
Wire the sensor and three LEDs
Wire the sensor and three LEDs
On the breadboard: MQ-135 VCC to Arduino 5V, GND to GND, and its analog output (AOUT) to A0. Wire three LEDs — ideally green, yellow and red — to pins 5, 6 and 7, each through a 330 Ω resistor to GND (long leg to the pin).
Izinto zokwakha zalesi sinyathelo:
Arduino Uno R31 ucezu
Imoduli ye-sensor yekhwalithi yomoya MQ-1351 ucezu
LED - Basic 5mm (25 pack)1 iphakethe
Resistor 330 Ohm 1/6 Watt PTH - 20 pack1 iphakethe
Breadboard1 ucezu
Jumper Wires (Male-to-Male)1 iphaketheConnect and open the IDE
Connect and open the IDE
Plug the Arduino into your computer with the USB cable, open the Arduino IDE, and select Arduino Uno and its serial port.
Izinto zokwakha zalesi sinyathelo:
USB-B Cable1 ucezuAmathuluzi adingekayo:
Ikhompyutha Ene-Arduino IDEUpload the traffic-light sketch
Upload the traffic-light sketch
Paste this sketch and upload. It warms the sensor, records a clean-air baseline, then lights green for good air, yellow for moderate and red for poor. Open the Serial Monitor to see the raw reading.
Warm up, baseline and test
Warm up, baseline and test
Run it in fresh air and let the 2-minute warm-up set the baseline (a new MQ-135 also needs a 24–48 h burn-in to settle). Then test it: breathe on it, spray a little deodorant nearby, or hold a blown-out match's smoke close — it should climb to yellow then red, and return to green in clean air. Tune MODERATE and POOR to change the thresholds.
Know the limits
Know the limits
The MQ-135 reacts to many gases at once and gives a RELATIVE reading, not a calibrated CO2 or ppm value — despite what some tutorials claim, real ppm needs proper calibration against known concentrations. It also drifts and needs re-baselining. Treat this as an air-change indicator and a great sensing project, not a laboratory instrument.
Izinto
7- Arduino Uno R3 SMDikhomishini engu-10%1 ucezu$27.06
- Isibambeli
- LED - Basic 5mmikhomishini engu-10%1 iphakethe$0.77
- Resistor 330 Ohm 1/6 Watt PTH - 20 packikhomishini engu-10%1 iphakethe$1.19
- Breadboard - Classicikhomishini engu-10%1 ucezu$9.50
- Jumper Wires Premium M/M 20 AWG - 15.5 cm (Pack of 10)ikhomishini engu-10%1 iphakethe$5.01
- SparkFun Cerberus USB Cable - 1.8 meterikhomishini engu-10%1 ucezu$5.69
Amathuluzi Adingekayo
2- Isibambeli
- Breadboard - Classicikhomishini engu-10%$9.50
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