Air quality sensor PM2.5 (PM5003) and breadboard adapter

A sensor for particulate matter with laser scattering

With this PM2.5 sensor you can track and sense the quality of the air around you. The sensor includes the cable and a breadboard adapter. If you travel accros industrial area then you should hook up this sensor on your truck. And for those of us not living in megalopolis, this sensor (with adapter kit) would help you for monitoring air quality, and super easy to use!

This sensor is made for real-time, reliable measurement of PM2.5 dust concentrations! PM2.5 means Particle Micron 2.5 and refers to the diameter size of particle that can be measured (2.5 microns or smaller). This sensor uses laser to radiate suspending particles in the air, then collects diffracted/reflected light to obtain the curve of scattering light change with time. The microprocessor calculates equivalent particle diameter and the number of particles with different diameter per unit volume.

Source: Wikipedia - Dynamic Light Scattering

This sensor requires a microcontroller with UART input. You can theoretically use a USB-Serial converter to capture and parse the data on a computer.

Adafruit did produce code for Arduino and CircuitPython. The 9600 baud data streams out once per second and you will get:

• PM1.0, PM2.5 and PM10.0 concentration in both standard and enviromental units
• Particulate matter per 0.1L air : categorized into 0.3µm, 0.5µm, 1.0µm, 2.5µm, 5.0µm and 10µm size bins

The data stream also includes a checksum. The output stram is a binary format (it doesn't come out as readable ascii text but binary data is fairly easy to parse)

We give you the sensor box as well as the cable and a 2.54mm breakout board so you can wire it easily. You only need power plus one data pin (for the UART TX). Power is 5V, logic is 3.3V.

Technical details

• Range of measurement: 0.3~1.0；1.0~2.5；2.5~10 μ m
• Effective Range: 0~500 μ g/m³
• Maximum Range: * ≥1000 μ g/m³
• Resolution: 1 µg/m³
• Standard Volume: 0.1L
• Power Supply: 5V DC (Min:4.5, Max: 5.5V)
• Active Current: ≤100 mA
• Standby Current: ≤200 μA
• Working Temperature Range: -10~+60 ℃
• Working Humidity Range: 0~99%
• Sensor Module Size: 50 × 38 × 21mm
• Weight (with cable): 42.2g
• PM5003 Manual