How to connect Sensirion SCD30 CO2 sensor via USB?

Sensors Environmental
1

I am new to Raspberry Pi, hardware programming in general. I followed this guide to make a PM2.5 / PM10 sensor:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/monito … pberry-pi/

I then added a screen connected to GPIO header to display readings using Kivy framework. I would like to add Sensirion SCD30 sensor to my setup to add CO2 data, but I need to connect it via USB since GPIO header is consumed by LCD. This is where I get lost - how do I connect the SCD30 via USB? I noticed in the reviews for this item one person found it so hard to connect to Raspberry Pi that they used an intermediate Arduino to get the data:

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15112

Any help on how to get started? The SDS011 PM2.5 sensor I used included a USB adapter that made it very easy to get the output in Python.

2

I think it is not impossible… it is just a lot of work. The SCD30 can communicate over a serial line with the modbus protocol. Most SCD30 drivers use the easier I2C protocol. You can try to obtain a USB/I2c converter, but I expect it will need special modification for the driver.

I assume the Modbus protocol over the serial line (using a USB/Serial converter) is a better way forward. On github I noticed a driver for Python using ModBus protocol: https://github.com/alanbontoft/SCD30_Modbus. Don’t know how good that is, but I would start looking into that direction.

3

Anyone aware of an NDIR CO2 sensor better suited to Raspberry Pi + USB?