Hi, as this is my first post in this forum, let me start with a big thanks to the developers of the software and the excellent documentation to make the sensor kit accessible to a wide audience and also less tech-savvy people.
To my feature request:
I use a Nova SDS011 sensor in a northern latitude, so we have plenty of cold days over the year. The Nova sensor has a rating for the operating temperature of down to -10°C (storage temperature of -20°C), which in my location is exceeded very often. I think similarly this will be the case also in many alpine regions as well as generally in northern latitudes.
In order to protect the sensor I currently often plug out the sensor and wait for warmer temperatures to plug it in again. However, I would like to build an insular system powered with a solar panel and battery to be able to use the sensor in detached settings, where I would not be able to manually power down the system.
Therefore I would like to propose or ask for a “temperature shutdown” feature. I would imagine this feature as to have a number-field where one can enter a desired minimum temperature, which once the temperature drops below the set temperature, the sensor would not be powered up. This way the sensor would be protected from operating outside its operating temperature range.
Why not but it will have to be a beta version. @the others : What do you think ?
I am not sure the sensor a so sensitive.
It can be a parameter in the “if” for the start. The problem is the temperature is measured after the PM…
Thanks for giving the request a though, much appreciated!
It is a good point how sensitive the sensors actually are. While I don’t really have an answer to that, I was going with the temperature ratings of the sensors which I need to assume are defined for a reason. But certainly with the fan the PMs have moving parts which must be affected by temperature. I would guess that also on the other end, i.e. heat, temperature limits could be considered, as heat might as well have the potential for serious damage to the sensor.
The NodeMCU is less sensitive to temperature and has a much wider operating temperature rating (-40 to +125) as the PM sensors, so it appears to me suitable to control potential shut downs of the sensors also outside the sensors’ operating limits.
Regarding the temperature being measured after the PM, I am not sure how much of a concern that would be. In the default setting the measurements are taken every few minutes so with the default settings it would only be a matter of a short time for a potential sensor shut down. And if one has set a lower frequency of measurements, my understanding would be, that the PM sensor would only be active once before a potential temperature limiter would take effect.