CO2ampel

Idea

Higher concentrations of CO2 inside will make you sleepy and have an impact on your wellbeing. During the current pandemic higher CO2 concentrations inside are also a pretty good indication for higher levels of aerosol and as such a higher risk for infection. The 'CO2 Ampel' (CO2 traffic light) will give you a visual representation of the current situation and remind you to open windows to keep you happy and healthy.

Get help building your own CO2ampel

You can always get help by contacting us. The fastet way is probably our maxtrix chat channel, but you can always use our mailing list or any other contact methods found at [https://www.un-hack-bar.de/kontakt/] (https://www.un-hack-bar.de/kontakt/).

Parts list

Have a list of all the parts necessary. We added an aliexpress link for convenience, but feel free to use other sources. The prices will vary among shops and we don't update the links.

For the electronics

description	part	link
ESP32 development board	ESP-32 30Pin	Aliexpress Link
Infrared CO2 Sensor	mhz-19	Aliexpress Link
Active piezzo buzzer (optional)	KY-012	Aliexpress Link
OLED Display	SSD1306
LED-Ring (8 or 9 Pixel)	WS2812	Aliexpress Link
3m USB cable	USB cable	Aliexpress Link
red, green, black and white wires	Signal wires	no link
30 cm of shrinking tube	shrinking tube	no link

For the case

Connection schema

Solder the wires according to the connection schema:

There is also a PCB-version of this project available (to be documented).

Firmware

Preparation

If you are on Windows: Make sure you have the proper drivers for your version of the ESP32 installed.
If you are on Linux: Do the duck dance!

Option 1: ESPHome

Get yourself a copy of ESPHome (https://esphome.io/) pip3 install esphome
Create a secrects.yaml file with your wifi settings. You can use secrets.yaml.example as a template.
In your console of choice (bash, cmd, ...): Set the environment variable co2ampel to the preferred name of the CO2Ampel: co2ampel=USER_ROOM
- replace user with a nick that identifies you or your organisation
- replace room with the place the sensor is located at
- e.g. unhb_hackspace or unhb_001 for obfuscation
- these will be used for online graphing! if sensor has wifi access
compile the firmware with esphome co2sensor.yaml run
You may have to hold the boot button on your esp32, until fw upload starts.

Option 2: Custom firmware written in C++ with platform.io

Clone the git repository https://git.unhb.de/smash/ebk-unhb-co2ampel
Use platform.io to compile / flash the firmware to the ESP32.

Setup

The sensor needs to be calibrated to measure acurately. This will happen automatically if the sensor is acrive at least 24 hours. The lowest measurement in this time will serve as a baseline of 400 ppm. It is advised to keep the sensor on power for at least 24 hours, at least once a month.
Place the sensor in your room, keep it away from direct exposure of breath (give it at least 1-2m distance to humans or other co2 sources to get the average co2 level of the room)

Additional setup for using option 1

When there is a freifunk wifi around there is nothing to do for you, same when you defined your own wifi via secrets.yaml.
Else just wait a bit and the sensor will spawn an wifi without a password. connect with your phone and choose to login or open http://192.168.4.1 in a browser to enter your wifi credentials
When everything is done, the default config will send the sensor readings back to the project where you can view online graphs (see grafana)

Grafana

there is a quick setup on here your sensor should apper in the list on the left as soon it is connected via wifi.

Schema as a table

ESP32 PIN	peripherals	note
VIN	mhz-19 (VCC)
GND	mhz-19 (GND)
GND	KY-012 (GND)	passive buzzer will do as well
D12	KY-012 (Signal/+)
3V3	SSD1306 (VCC)
3V3	WS2812 (VCC)
GND	WS2812 (GND)
GND	SSD1306 (GND)
D4	WS2812 (DI)
RX2 / D16	mhz-19 (TX)
TX2 / D17	mhz-19 (RX)
I2C SDA / D21	SSD1306 (SDA)
I2C SCL / D22	SSD1306 (SCL)

ws2812 troubleshooting

If your ws2812 don't work on 3.3V power (most will do) you can try to use 5V instead. There are plenty different ws2812 builds so ymmv... if the leds don't work with 5V try to add a pullup resistor to your data line and a diode towards D4 to raise your high level while protecting your GPIO (https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=578735.msg3941756#msg3941756) looks like this:

either way it might be a good idea to have a capacitor between VCC and GND. my prototype worked without any of these, but from time to time some LEDs just randomly turn on and the lights flicker slightly when the sensor takes a measurement.

readings for inside rooms

CO2 measure	light	buzzer	meaning
400 ppm	none	no	more or less the baseline of the sensor hardware and means 'outside air quality'
400-800ppm	none	no	safe zone and can be considered good air quality
800-1000ppm	yellow	no	warning zone (consider to open windows) and is between medium and bad air quality
> 1000ppm	red + blink	no	hygienic bad air quality, chance for infections rise

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