Recently, I re-surfaced my spoilboard and it got me thinking about how much dust am I creating. So, I decided to create my own dust monitor as cheaply as I could. As it turns out, the sensor is not overly expensive and the rest of the components were laying around (mileage may vary). The key components were:
- Sensor - Sensirion Sen66 (4 x particle sizes, CO2, VOC, Temp, Humidity)
- Processor - Old Raspberry PI 3b
- Computer - Desktop/laptop (or NAS) for software below
- Software - All Open Source (free) (Python, Grafana, InfluxDB)
Other than my time, the sensor was my “net new” cost at about $60. I can now monitor dust levels (pm1, 2.5, 5, and 10) whenever I run my CNC. The Raspberry PI just sits in a convenient spot near the CNC and I use my workbench computer to display the graphs (via Grafana). Since these are web-based applications, I can also monitor the dust levels remotely. The only real programming is to read the sensor and push the values to the InfluxDB. The graphics (Grafana) and the database (InfluxDB) play well together.
