Earth, water, air & fire sensing

Thread Starter

Tom2459

Joined May 23, 2020
16
Hi all, Im in need of a little help or insite on an escape room puzzle.
Im making a fire, water, air & earth elements game (5th element ripoff ) i.e. Players interact with a structure to make it react.. Do all 4 to complete puzzle.
Fire, water, earth easily done with a flame ir sensor, rain drop sensor and a ir gap sensor (these need to be tested but seem the most appropriate)
AIR!??? this one is kinda akward! there are various possibilities ive looked accross but with little knowledge of configering sensors in any advanced way, i need a simple on or off sensor. PLEASE could someone share with me some advice??

Many thanks in advance.
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
Welcome to AAC, Tom.

AIR!??? this one is kinda akward! there are various possibilities ive looked accross but with little knowledge of configering sensors in any advanced way, i need a simple on or off sensor. PLEASE could someone share with me some advice??
Please define what you mean by air.

For example, do you mean any gas pressure at about 1 atmosphere? That is an "off" state for air would be a vacuum. Or do you mean a particular gaseous mixture at 1 atm that we breathe. If the latter, please give examples of what would not be "air."
 

Thread Starter

Tom2459

Joined May 23, 2020
16
I understand the broadness of my question, so i guess the solution could be either..
Any sensor that would realiably detect the force generated from a person blowing air onto it,
Or for a diffenent approach, could it be possible to reliably detect the small increase in co2, heat, or moisture prehaps from a persons breath compaired to the atmosphere as normal (this being off state) i need someway of going from off to on when the person blows air onto a viable sensor but im a little stuck
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
Temperature, humidity, CO2, trace organics, air flow can be used to detect "breath." But why? Are you trying to detect people? Live people vs. dead? Lung capacity? Etc.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
A pendulum switch. Which is a metal ring with a metal string through it for the contact with a plate on the end of it to catch the airflow. Any airflow moves the string which contacts the ring to complete the circuit.
 

Thread Starter

Tom2459

Joined May 23, 2020
16
Thank you for the replies all,
I like the idea of the pendulum switch the balloon one might too easily give a false connection due to being outside.. Id love the co2 sensor to work too so i will have a play with these two options for now
 

Reloadron

Joined Jan 15, 2015
7,501
If you want to measure pressure in a room verses atmosphere a somple manometer as crude as this works.
Manometer.png

Simple Tygon plastic tubing with water and food coloring. You want to get electronic then a differential pressure sensor will work just fine.

Air quality is another sensor or sensors depending on how well defined we want to get. I guess the question becomes is the air in a room breathable? "By volume, dry air contains 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1% at sea level, and 0.4% over the entire atmosphere". All you care about is can we survive as long as room air is what was mentioned. Obviously if Nitrogen or Carbon Dioxide start exceeding those limits and Oxygen depletes we have a problem. Every onset of winter we have people up here in NE Ohio die from Carbon Monoxide poisoning due to faulty gas fired furnaces. Take a nap and never wake up.

So pretty much up to you as to air concerns.

Ron
 
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