Gas Sensor For Emergency Workers

Lately I haven't had the time to so much work on the project (I'm getting married in under 2 weeks) so I decided to ask around a few people on what they thought of the idea. As I know a few people in industry which this project targets I firgured getting some feedback would be great.

Opinions on the gas sensor were fantastic. As I expected it was well received. What I didn't toally expect was the slight "reprimands" for not taking this to market and filing patents etc. I've explained to a few people that without others providing design and code "open source" I would not have been able to do such projects. I don't think this was fully understood by most :)

I guess those outside the open-source community will never fully embrace the fact that giving things away is "normal" and needed to support growth. I actually didn't mind a scolding for this- must mean they think the project has merit :)

More updates soon. Feedback on the project and code always appreciated. Cheers!

Well here is a long overdue update. So far the gas sensor ball is working extremely well in tests. Please excuse the "ugly" prototype as I actually recycled some old parts from another project to expedite the assembly :)

Rather than typing up a long explanation- here is a full video update:

Code is now posted so all people can recreate/improve this project anywhere in the world. I truly hope this can be used someday in real world situations. Maybe even save a life someday...

I am not holding back on the design/code- take it, make it yours, make it better. Share it with the world!

For now I am going on the hunt for a better sensor for this project. the MQ2 seems to work well for a "Go/No-Go" indicator but it does not do very well for clear and specific measurements of the various levels. It does seem to become "confused" if the sensor is saturated in certain conditions. If I can find a sensor which can be calibrated and falls within the accuracy of the commercial multi-gas analyzers I will be much happier.

Enjoy and thanks for all the support!

Eric

I've been reworking the code a bit lately and and super happy with the results. Although the MQ2 sensor would not be suitable for a commercial "certified for human life" unit, the results using this cheap component are quite impressive.

Using the single analog output from the MQ2 is not ideal for multi gas monitoring, the pre-made code I adapted does an admirable job!

Here is the appearance I made on the Adafruit live Show and Tell with Lady Ada and Phil. Always have a blast when I get to join them. They seemed impressed by the idea.

Fast Forward to 9:12 as the link to that spot seems not to work here

Final code and design to be published soon.

Initial prototype and code works fantastic. A small amount of work must be done on the enclosure to make it robust enoiugh to throw into buildings, down stairs etc. 100% success thus far.

YouTube Video Here