The RIFFLE-ito is a lower-functionality and higher cost version of the Riffle water quality sensor. The Riffle-ito is based on the Atmel328p, and is intended to be compatible with the accessibile and ubiquitous Wiring platform (and, by extension, the Arduino IDE). For a lower-cost, higher-functionalty Riffle that isn't yet compatible with Wiring, please see here.
The width and height of the Riffle-ito device allows the device to fit through the mouth of a standard commercially produced plastic water bottle (20 mm). By inserting the Riffle-ito into such a bottle, along with a few AA batteries, and connecting a thermistor and other sensors that poke out through the water bottle cap, a very accessible water quality sensor may be constructed.
Details:
- the Riffle-ito requires an FTDI cable in order to be reprogrammed (e.g. Adafruit's FTDI Friend or SparkFun's 'FTDI Basic Breakout'), which typically costs $15 or so. One cable can be used for several Riffle-ito senso nodes.
- includes a uSD holder, I2C EEPROM flash memory, and a high-precision real time clock (the DS3231) with coin battery backup
- programmable as an "Arduino UNO" board in the Arduino IDE
- runs at 3.3V / 16 MHz
- includes circuit for monitoring battery level
- the board width (18 mm) and height profile (uses right-angle headers) allows device to be inserted through mouth of standard plastic water bottle (one with 20 mm diameter or greater)
- Rough estimate of the total cost of parts that could be used to log temperature in a water bottle (not including shipping, the water bottle, or an FTDI cable): 38 USD; a detailed cost estimate is here
- For a diagram of pin locations and optional configurations, please see this diagram in PDF format