Programing to attach CO2 Humidity and Temperature Checker

[GMW1988]

This may be for future plans. I still have a number of hours of soldering work and assembly work for the Cubesatsim.
Though I am thinking about adding something to the Cubesatsim but I don't want to make things too advanced. How well would a CO2 checker work on the Cubesatsim. I am thinking of adding the Sparkfun CO2 Humidity and Temperature checker
The sensor uses the Qwicc connection system. So most of the challenge will come with the programing. Would Python be the best language to use to program so the Pico would recognize the CO2 checker for an entry level programer? If I use python to deal with the programing would I have rewrite all the code for the Pico so that the other sensors will still get detected? Is there a way to simply just add the code for CO2 checker?

Thanks,
Gregory

[alanbjohnston]

Hi Gregory,

It isn't too hard to add a new sensor to the CubeSatSim. That CO2 sensor should work. I looked up the specs and checked that its I2C address doesn't conflict with the built in sensors (I2C is a shared bus and each sensor needs to have a unique address). It seems its address is 0x62 which doesn't conflict with the 0x68 and 0x76 of the MPU and BME sensors.

To add the new sensor, you will need to plug it into the Qwiic connector on the Main Board (not the one on the Solar Board) and program the Raspberry Pi Pico micro controller. You will need to set up the Arduino IDE on your computer by following these instructions: https://github.com/alanbjohnston/CubeSatSim/wiki/Adding-New-Sensors

Once you are able to Compile and Upload the Blink code, you can try the Payload Sensor Code which is here: https://github.com/alanbjohnston/CubeSatSim/tree/master/stempayload/Payload_BME280_MPU6050_XS

This code is ready to have new sensors added. You just need to put your sensor initialization and reading code into the file payload_extension.cpp

There is an example of this for another sensor here: https://github.com/alanbjohnston/CubeSatSim/blob/master/stempayload/Payload_BME280_MPU6050_XS_Extended/payload_extension.cpp

Since this code is all in C, I'd recommend you do your programming in C. If you used Python, you would need to recreate the existing sensor code in Python, then add your sensor code.

If everything works, you should see your sensor data string in your Pi Zero if you log in and type this command:

cd
CubeSatSim/config -p

If the CubeSatSim is in Mode 2 (FSK) or Mode 3 (BPSK), in FoxTelem, in the Experiments box, you should see your sensor data in the Sensor 1, Sensor2, and Sensor 3 fields. In Mode 1 (APRS), you should see your string in the APRS packet.

Good luck!
Alan