I just put together the indoor kit. using a 5.1v 2.1a powere adapter (apple). The LED screen does not light up but the CO2 module has a yellow flash every 2-3 seconds. Suggestions please, thanks.
Hi there! Did you follow the build instructions exactly? Please go through the build instructions once again and make sure you’ve installed the TVOC/NOx module and the temp/humidity module in the right pin sockets with the AirGradient logo facing outwards. The behaviour you’ve described it associated with one of those modules being misplaced / not facing the right away.
Thanks for replying. I checked the postions and the orientation for those modules and they are correct. Purple temp/humidity in the lower right and TVOC/NOx in the upper right, both facing me.
Did the screen ever show anything, such as during boot up?
Can you include a photo of your board?
The screen has never lit up.
Here is a photo of the board. I’m only allowed to upload one image per post.
Close ups available if needed.
Additional info:
I was able to connect to the dashboard. However, there is no data uploading and the connection is lost after a fairly short period of time (unsure, maybe 20 minutes).
Your chip in the upper right is not installed properly. It should be facing outside of the board.
You can see how in the upper right one of the pins says SDA but it doesn’t align with the label of SDA on the board.
Flip it around and double check against the instructions and then you should get the display back.
You are correct! I faced the upper right module to the outside and the LED monitor now works… That’s the good news, thank you. The bad news is I was getting indoor PM2.5 readings in the 90s this afternoon, down to 40s now. Still way bad. CO2 in upper hundreds and below 1000, okay i think. VOC is decent as well.
Still need to figure out how to get the data up to the dashboard so I can look at rates versus time. The dashboard shows offline. Tomorrow’s project.
Thanks for the help (I would swear the video showed the module facing to the front).
Jay
I resolved the connection issue and also updated the firmware. Did notice a huge change in the PM2.5 vaules after the update. Hoping the update is more accurate as the values improved - but makes me concerned about the reliability of the data.
Has anyone had issues with PM2.5 values and/or large changes due to a firmware update?
If you were cooking earlier today that can result in high values that can go down pretty quickly
Found out last night that an ultrasonic humidifier running in a closed bedroom can send PM2.5 up to 190 in about an hour! After unplugging the humidifier, the PM2.5 levels decread to 20s in about 2 hours and were at 0 by morning. Blown away!
I’m not on a data science team, but just because the sensors can pickup the water in the air from an ultrasonic, I don’t think it is necessarily harmful.
Water in your lungs is different than hard particles, but unless you are using distilled water there could still be particles you don’t want.
It’s not the water from the ultrasonic humidifier that is being captured by the PM sensor. I replaced tap water with distilled water and the PM 2.5 vaules are now 0. The ultrasonic humidifier vibrates water into a mist that evaporates leaving fine particles of any minerals in the air. The manufaturers tell consumers to use distilled water but do not really inform on the hazards of using tap water.
The huge increase in PM2.5 when using an ultrasonic humidifier was an eye opener to me when I got my first AD Indoor monitor. Apart from anything else, this high reading screws up normal monitoring of PM2.5 readings elsewhere as the PM2.5 from a humidifier used in a bedroom (for example) will soon spread to the rest of the house. As a consequence, I rarely use the humidifier now.
Using distilled water in a humidifier is obviously the best option to avoid this (and possibly healthier), but the way that humidifiers drink up water makes it an expensive option if the humidifier is used a lot. I assume that the reason manufacturers suggest using distilled water is that, in the long term, this may prolong the life of the ultrasonic device.