AirGradient Forum

PMS sensor not found

Hey, my AirGradient ONE Kit arrived today. I’ve put it together according to instructions. Since it does not come with a power supply, I tried whatever I had lying around - a phone charger power supply. On the back of it, it says “INPUT: 100-240V 50/60Hz 0.4A, OUTPUT: DC5V ===2.4A Max”, which sounded within reason of what I need.

When I plugged the device for the first time, it was flashing all LEDs red and there was nothing on the screen. I shrugged and used my PC USB port to power up the device, connect it to WIFI and to the dashboard.

All went good except one thing - when I power the device it says “Sensor init error: PMS not found”, and after initialization displays a 0 for PM2.5 (it was displaying “-” for a first few times I booted it up). There’s also no data on the cloud dashboard. I’m pretty sure my air is not that clean.

I checked the cable with a multi-meter and it seems to be fine. Initial connection from the PCB to the PMS5003 also seemed fine, but I reconnected it anyway.

To my observation, at no point PMS fans were spinning, as if no power is supplied to the component.

Turns out that power supply does not work, and I wonder if I somehow managed to damage the device :confused: (my phone won’t change with that power supply).

I see that the firmware writes logs, but unsure how to retrieve those logs to be able to attach them here, if that would be helpful.

I was on firmware version 3.1.11 (I think) when I did initial successful boot, and now it updated automatically to 3.1.21.

Any ideas?

Can you send a photo of the assembled PCB? Also make sure that the cable is tightly plugged into the PMS sensor and not loose.

Sure, here it is:





I did try to push it the connector in as far as I can, without the fear of breaking the connector or the component.

Would it generally be expected to fully work from a PC USB port? Commonly, USB ports output just 5V, 0.5A, as far as I know. The manual specifies 5V, 2A. I’m not exactly sure what my motherboard USB port would output. It has a “+” marking, which supposedly is a USB port used for changing/power delivery, but I can’t really find a full spec of what it can output. My motherboard is MAG-Z690-TOMAHAWK-WIFI-DDR4 (MS-7D32).

Could it be that the problem is from insuffient amperage?

Probably unrelated, but I my PMS module serial number happens to be one with “PMS5003-20240104” format, which, to my understanding, can be affected by this calibration problem. As a last effort I did try turning the calibration on, as described in the article, but that didn’t do much as I basically don’t have any readings from the component in the first place.

Cheers

The connection looks fine. Can you record the logs via below description, then contact our support team via our website and ask the ticket to get escalated to me.

Online Debug

I’ve received my replacement PMS module and it seems to be working as intended. Thanks for help!