I have been mulling over the Solar Radiation Sensor and the UV Sensor and how those would be calibrated. I have succeeded in getting the two main sensors connected to the Arduino. The connections for the TSL2561 (for Radiation Sensor) is done according to instructions found at Adafruit - TSL2561 Luminosity Sensor. The connections for the SI1145 (for UV Sensor) is done according to the instructions found at Adafruit-si1145-breakout-board-uv-ir-visible-sensor. I might be able to make do with the one SI1145 sensor, but the visible sensor is not calibrated.
Unfortunately, I will need to have each of these sensors under some sort of a window material. The UV sensor will need to go under some type of window. From the Cancer Research UK website, "UVA mostly causes skin ageing and research has now shown that it is also likely to cause skin cancer. UVB causes redness and sunburn and is a major risk factor for all types of skin cancer. Most glass used for windows blocks UVB but not UVA. This means that although glass might reduce the risk of sunburn, it does not prevent long term damage from UVA." In addition, I know that polycarbonate plastic will block most UV. I am not sure of the window material that I should use for this. It seems appropriate to use ordinary glass since that passes half of the UV radiation. The luminosity sensor should be okay if placed under ordinary glass. I will of course need to hard mount the sensors on top of the Arduino - possibly substituting a Gertduino on top of a Raspberry Pi to transmit the information.
When I say calibrated, I mean outputting values that are statistically in-the-ballpark of sensors costing many times more. What I will need to do is to correlate the output of these sensors over a period of time against local area sensors costing many times more. The idea is that whatever values come out of the sensors can be modified to be statistically within the ballpark of the highly calibrated devices. I would assume that I would need to form some equations so that the output of my sensors match that of others within the area. The thing about my sensors is that they will follow the same curves as other sensors, taking out for cloud cover, etc. and should be able to be mathematically stretched to match. This will form the basis for my calibration and over a period of time should prove out to be accurate.
This is a blog mostly about techie things, what I am doing to my apartment network on the cheap, IOT, 3D Printing, Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, ESP32, ESP8266, Home Automation, Personal Weather Stations, Things That Go Bump in the Night, and some side issues that need discussing. Remember, sometimes the journey to an end is as much fun as the goal achieved!
