… meanwhile, Sukandar connects the air pollution sensor

Here’s a typical data readout with the sensor on my desk:
PM1_0_SP        9
PM2_5_SP        11
PM10_SP         11
PM1_0_UAE       9
PM2_5_UAE       11
PM10_UAE        11
Dia0_3          1650
Dia0_5          446
Dia1_0          68
Dia2_5          2
Dia5_0          0
Dia10           0

All parameters fluctuate quite a lot, but maybe that’s just the baseline noise in a “clean” environment and will not be relevant once out on the streets. e.g. Dia0_3, the most sensitive one, showed values between 1400 and 2300 just sitting on my desk, and even putting it in a box brought down the upper limit only to about 2000. For in-door testing I had heard that candles create quite a lot of fine particles, but none of the parameters reacted in a meaningful way :(.
Only when I blew out the candle and the smoke entered the sensor I got a spike – this however was quite a dramatic one, saturating both Dia0_3 and Dia0_5

The lag I observed was about 20s to reach baseline levels again after this spike. If you add extra nozzles or wind-shields etc. I suppose this value will be even higher. So I guess just going from a busy street into a side-street will not give you much perceptible response. You probably need to enter a park to get something meaningful…  But that’s just speculation at the moment.

The important thing at this stage is confirming that a nozzle of some kind to direct air flow will be necessary. And the optimum way to do this will be after making a swiveable nozzle that we can aim in different directions from the sonic bikes box.  July Environmental Bike Lab work, here we come.