Wayne,
why do you need 'smoke' ?  And why 'particles' ? Isn't the task to register
any deviation from normal air? Or is it to analyze specific  molecules
created during fire? Or make chemical analysis of finest stuff that floats
in the room's air ? Seems to be more complicated than I thought. How can
you find a cheap solution, when this is job for a gas mass spectrometer...a
quite new area for me.
Inge


On 28 August 2013 08:07, Wayne Thayer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> OK, here's another problem I've been playing with (although it has little
> to do with IPC mission, it might be related).
>
> I am trying to build a system for measuring airborne particulates for
> humanitarian organizations looking for inexpensive ways to measure/monitor
> indoor air quality.  There are cheap sensors available which might do the
> job, but they would need periodic re-calibration.
>
> So I need a controlled, extremely small amount of smoke.  At first, I
> thought this would be trivial:  Find a cheap part at DigiKey and put too
> many watts through it.  Way too much smoke and too little control.  Then I
> tried burning thin wires.  Too irregular because sometimes they incinerate
> completely and other times they find a tiny defect and just burn that until
> the wire stops conducting.  Then I tried just heating the wire enough to
> burn off the insulation.  Still too irregular!  I did just a few
> experiments and got 30% variation.
>
> Now I'm starting to think maybe a tiny piece of paper on an automotive
> cigarette lighter.  That's a lot of power to get that glowing, and it is
> not convenient to attach to.  Any other ideas?
>
> Wayne
>
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