How I Had to Buy Two

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Hi All,

Just a quick share and thank you. I came across the Sparkfun Photon Weather shields one day looking for some other parts. I must have had a beer because it was in my shopping cart when I checked out.

Few days later it’s on my desk, breathing cyan and posting my desk’s fan speed to Losant. What now, I fire up Fusion 360, grab my calipers and whip up Weather Box v1 (left box). Off to the 3D printer and some BBQ while I wait. The board fits great, maybe the box is a little big. Anyway I wire up the SparkFun boards regulated supply, install the Photon and turn on the power.

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It’s not supposed to do that! The Photon LED starts making erratic flashes and shortly after I get a strong smell of burnt capacitor. I power off and evaluate, it’s easy to see the problem.

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Mouser takes care of the replacement so I go back to the calipers and trim the fat off v1 for Weather Box v2(right box). While I’m waiting for the new board I can’t stop thinking what to do with the faulty Sparkfun board and v1 box. Quick modification to the box to power via USB and an order for my second Photon. I just had to have two.

BIG thank you to the Particle community, Haley & Josh from Mouser and Chris from Sparkfun.

Added the CAD image because the pictures don’t really show the box details.

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Cool!

Is this what you were trying to add the VOC sensor to?

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Thanks!

It wasn’t actually, that’s for an electron project but I have another CCS in my shopping cart :yum: I’m going to deploy this weather project for now while I work on the other.

Trying to figure out how to best minimize data, power and still warm the VOC for 20mins…

Next up for Weather box v3 will be adding a 3.7v lipo, VOC now and I was thinking of switching to the Redbear Duo for when we are trailer camping.

I definitely agree with you the CO2(ppm) & VOC(ppb) are mirrored. When I get a chance I might blow some 99.95% CO2 over and see what it shows.

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If the power consumption is low enough you may be able to turn on the CCS811 and leave it on all the time? Or set it to take readings every min instead of every second, which may drop the constant power draw readings. Haven’t measured it’s current comsumption.

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I am thinking something very similar and was reading the programing datasheet earlier.

What do you think of the CCS constantly powered separate from the 3v3 pin. The Electron/CCS will be powered via wall wart most time and if the main power fails it could switch to a DEEP_SLEEP mode only waking periodically and omitting CCS reading.