Red Balloon Carbon Monoxide Detector

How does it work?

The MQt carbon monoxide sensor detects high levels of CO-gas concentrations in the air and gives an alert by changing the LED light from green to red.

Building the Circuit

Click on this link where we've pre-selected the components for you. If you want, you can also add other components from the builder, such as piezo speaker, ESP8266 wifi module and more.

After putting together the circuit:

• Solder the MQ7 sensor to the breakout board. Notice that in the step-by-step wiring guide, the MQ7 sensor is sitting directly on the breadboard. After you test the code you can connect the MQ7 sensor to a long wire ribbon.

• Solder a wire ribbon to the Q7 sensor. We used a 15 feet ribbon (approx. 5 meters).

• You can use crimps at the tips of the ribbon to connect them to the breadboard instead of soldering.

Code for the CO Detector

1. Download the code from the code section on circuito.io, and extract it to your computer.

2. Open it with the Arduino IDE. Make sure to set the port and board properly.

3. Upload the code to the Arduino.

4. Open the serial monitor and follow the instructions.

5. Once everything is set up, download the project code from our Github Repo

Now that your circuit and code are ready, all that's left to do is buy a red balloon and start experimenting! Good Luck!

For more information about this project, visit our blog