The WELL: inkwell.vue.448: Emily Gertz and Patrick DiJusto: Environmental Monitoring with Arduino

#53: Patrick Di Justo (justpat) Sat 25 Aug 12 07:28

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 07:28:00 PDT

In the case of ion specific electrodes and the like, a lot (maybe half) the cost is in the sensor itself. So you might safe half the cost by connecting a specific sensor to an Arduino.

One elaborate Rube Goldbergian approach might be to have a small arduino controlled micro pump extract a small sample of water, which is then injected (via another arduino controlled micro pump) with a small amount of chemical reagent, which turns color based on the level of whatever it is your measuring. This would be imaged by a small color sensor, which returns an RGB reading of the color of the liquid inside the test tube.

The whole thing might cost as much as an ion specific probe, and be prone to more frequent breakdowns, but think of the glory! [Read entire topic]

#52: Gary Nolan (gnolan) Sat 25 Aug 12 01:14

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 01:14:00 PDT

The hand held meters are an arm and a leg also. Part of why these little guys looked intriguing.

Companies like Vernier and Ocean Optics have been putting out little portable spectrometers that are basically an optical compartment hooked to their unit by fiber optic cable and USB out. A job for Arduino? [Read entire topic]

#51: Emily Gertz (emilyg) Fri 24 Aug 12 12:43

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:43:00 PDT

For what you have in mind, Gary, it's probably worth considering moving up to more professional-calibre gear. Those ion specific electrodes are not cheap, AFAIK. Patrick can say more, I think. [Read entire topic]

#50: Gary Nolan (gnolan) Fri 24 Aug 12 10:55

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:55:00 PDT

Late to this but I am interested in applications such as ammonia/nitrates, phosphates, etc. in water. Are these possible and if so how? I'm imagining ion specific electrodes and wonder if a calibration curve can be programmed in. [Read entire topic]

#49: Patrick Di Justo (justpat) Fri 24 Aug 12 02:11

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 02:11:00 PDT

Yes, I have the same problem with my Arduino NG. But at least the old IDS are still available. [Read entire topic]

#48: Rob Myers (robmyers) Thu 23 Aug 12 04:54

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 04:54:00 PDT

Emily - Thanks.

Eric - Yes I still have my original Arduino, although the latest IDE doesn't seem to want to talk to it. [Read entire topic]

#47: J. Eric Townsend (jet) Wed 22 Aug 12 09:34

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 09:34:00 PDT

Recycling is good. I have ~five year old Arduinos that I still reach for when I need a dummy Arduino for a simple code test. [Read entire topic]

#46: Gail Williams (gail) Wed 22 Aug 12 09:00

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 09:00:00 PDT

I happened to be looking at Kickstarter yesterday -- checking out a friend's high tech Slingfin backpack design -- and I saw the mini Arduino project -- Digispark, an Arduino-enabled USB developer board the size of a quarter. It's already being written up too:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/20/digispark-kickstarter-arduino-jr/

A selling point is that it is cheap enough to not have to recycle for use in your next project, if I read that right. A pity to look at it that way, but otherwise it sounds like it will be a cool tool. [Read entire topic]

#45: Emily Gertz (emilyg) Wed 22 Aug 12 08:21

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 08:21:00 PDT

Rob asked,

For environmental monitoring I guess it's important to make data publicly available, but is it better to clean it up first?

Well, there are at least two ways to look at that. On the one hand, the more raw data made available, the more ways it can be used by more people. On the other hand, really raw data can be all but useless to those who don't know how to sort it and begin to find their desired information.

My opinion is that at a minimum, you want to clean up your data in ways that give it consistent structure (think of the order in which information appears in a spreadsheet, for instance).

And if there is some sort of algorithmic crunching that needs doing in order to correct for environmental conditions beyond your control, it's probably a good idea to incorporate that into the Arduino programming itself, and then just make that information available along with the data.

I hope this gets at what you're asking about.

On data scraping--I didn't know about scraperwiki until that workshop last week. Looking forward to digging into it more. [Read entire topic]

#44: Greg Broiles (gbroiles) Tue 21 Aug 12 14:08

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:08:00 PDT

The USB connection can be used to power the device - it's also how the program(s) are loaded. Out of the box the Arduinos don't really do anything. [Read entire topic]