Arduino Pulse Sensor Guide : Modules And DIY Pulse Sensor

Abhishek Ghosh

By Abhishek Ghosh May 7, 2017 8:31 pm Updated on May 7, 2017

Arduino Pulse Sensor Guide : Modules And DIY Pulse Sensor

There is nothing about pulse sensors yet there is lot to know about pulse sensors. This Arduino Pulse Sensor Guide Explains Various Ready To Use Pulse Sensor Modules And How To Build DIY Pulse Sensor From Electronic Parts. Patient Monitors has most important role in modern medicine but commercial production is very costly. The F/OSS projects like e-health platform follows the similar monopoly, push sell principle like that proprietary things. They are not electronics but ready to use gizmos. We should think about building DIY medical electronics for our own need. Professional doctors, their associations, device companies, governments, reputed world famous know how to criticise great projects like F/OSS DIY Ultrasound Machine. It is meaningless to talk about the prominent dark part of healthcare. Deeper understanding of basic electronics and biomechanics becoming very important to destroy the fort of megalomaniac professional medical groups. At present, all developments are labelled for “education purpose” to bypass dangerous laws which can land an innocent behind the bar or worser fate to a doctor or Biomed engineer. We need to remember that with minimal resources Richard Stallman alone built GNU, FSF which are standards now particularly in server software arena.

Arduino Pulse Sensor Guide : Modules

Heart Rate is a data and can be interpreted with many microcontroller projects. But the Pulse Sensor Amped design is easiest and widely available ready to use hardware which can read heart rate, cheap, code, schematic easily available and graphs also can be generated. Pulse Sensor Amped amplifies, cancels noise from hardware level and is faster. By principle it combines an optical heart rate sensor with amplification and noise cancellation circuitry. They usually look round shaped PCB with heart drawn at the centre. They lack any display. That is made by :

https://pulsesensor.com

1	https://pulsesensor.com

It is Libre hardware and schematic of the thing is available :

https://pulsesensor.com/pages/open-hardware

1	https://pulsesensor.com/pages/open-hardware

Obviously, there are more cheaper, similar looking modules available which are made by the China companies.

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In order to use it, connect the sensor’s power supply’s Red pin to the Arduino board power 5V supply, Black to GND and Purple to A0 analog input 0. This Analog input reading can be displayed in serial terminal of Arduino IDE and also can be drawn as live graph. This thing works with Raspberry Pi alternatives, littleBits Proto Bit too. In order to display the reading, one need to echo the serial terminal of to display device like TM 1637. This is the basic code to display reading on serial terminal of Arduino IDE (Pin 5 has a diode) :

//  VARIABLES
int pulsePin = 0;                 // Pulse Sensor purple wire connected to analog pin 0
int blinkPin = 13;                // pin to blink led at each beat
int fadePin = 5;                  // pin to do fancy classy fading blink at each beat
int fadeRate = 0;                 // used to fade LED on with PWM on fadePin
// these variables are volatile because they are used during the interrupt service routine!
volatile int BPM;                   // used to hold the pulse rate
volatile int Signal;                // holds the incoming raw data
volatile int IBI = 600;             // holds the time between beats, must be seeded! 
volatile boolean Pulse = false;     // true when pulse wave is high, false when it's low
volatile boolean QS = false;        // becomes true when Arduoino finds a beat.


void setup(){
  pinMode(blinkPin,OUTPUT);         // pin that will blink to your heartbeat!
  pinMode(fadePin,OUTPUT);          // pin that will fade to your heartbeat!
  Serial.begin(115200);             // we agree to talk fast!
  interruptSetup();                 // sets up to read Pulse Sensor signal every 2mS 
   // UN-COMMENT THE NEXT LINE IF YOU ARE POWERING The Pulse Sensor AT LOW VOLTAGE, 
   // AND APPLY THAT VOLTAGE TO THE A-REF PIN
   //analogReference(EXTERNAL);   
}
void loop(){
  sendDataToProcessing('S', Signal);     // send Processing the raw Pulse Sensor data
  if (QS == true){                       // Quantified Self flag is true when arduino finds a heartbeat
        fadeRate = 255;                  // Set 'fadeRate' Variable to 255 to fade LED with pulse
        sendDataToProcessing('B',BPM);   // send heart rate with a 'B' prefix
        sendDataToProcessing('Q',IBI);   // send time between beats with a 'Q' prefix
        QS = false;                      // reset the Quantified Self flag for next time    
     }
  
  ledFadeToBeat();
  
  delay(20);                             //  take a break
}
void ledFadeToBeat(){
    fadeRate -= 15;                         //  set LED fade value
    fadeRate = constrain(fadeRate,0,255);   //  keep LED fade value from going into negative numbers!
    analogWrite(fadePin,fadeRate);          //  fade LED
  }
void sendDataToProcessing(char symbol, int data ){
    Serial.print(symbol);                // symbol prefix tells Processing what type of data is coming
    Serial.println(data);                // the data to send culminating in a carriage return
  }

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// VARIABLES

int pulsePin = 0; // Pulse Sensor purple wire connected to analog pin 0

int blinkPin = 13; // pin to blink led at each beat

int fadePin = 5; // pin to do fancy classy fading blink at each beat

int fadeRate = 0; // used to fade LED on with PWM on fadePin

// these variables are volatile because they are used during the interrupt service routine!

volatile int BPM; // used to hold the pulse rate

volatile int Signal; // holds the incoming raw data

volatile int IBI = 600; // holds the time between beats, must be seeded!

volatile boolean Pulse = false; // true when pulse wave is high, false when it's low

volatile boolean QS = false; // becomes true when Arduoino finds a beat.

void setup(){

pinMode(blinkPin,OUTPUT); // pin that will blink to your heartbeat!

pinMode(fadePin,OUTPUT); // pin that will fade to your heartbeat!

Serial.begin(115200); // we agree to talk fast!

interruptSetup(); // sets up to read Pulse Sensor signal every 2mS

// UN-COMMENT THE NEXT LINE IF YOU ARE POWERING The Pulse Sensor AT LOW VOLTAGE,

// AND APPLY THAT VOLTAGE TO THE A-REF PIN

//analogReference(EXTERNAL);

}

void loop(){

sendDataToProcessing('S', Signal); // send Processing the raw Pulse Sensor data

if (QS == true){ // Quantified Self flag is true when arduino finds a heartbeat

fadeRate = 255; // Set 'fadeRate' Variable to 255 to fade LED with pulse

sendDataToProcessing('B',BPM); // send heart rate with a 'B' prefix

sendDataToProcessing('Q',IBI); // send time between beats with a 'Q' prefix

QS = false; // reset the Quantified Self flag for next time

}

ledFadeToBeat();

delay(20); // take a break

}

void ledFadeToBeat(){

fadeRate -= 15; // set LED fade value

fadeRate = constrain(fadeRate,0,255); // keep LED fade value from going into negative numbers!

analogWrite(fadePin,fadeRate); // fade LED

}

void sendDataToProcessing(char symbol, int data ){

Serial.print(symbol); // symbol prefix tells Processing what type of data is coming

Serial.println(data); // the data to send culminating in a carriage return

}

Arduino Pulse Sensor Guide : Modules

It is also possible to build own module with the following basic electronic components :

LM324N IC (quad channel Op Amp, DIP-14)
2N3904 Transistor
0.1µF 50V ceramic disc capacitor
1µF 35V tantalum capacitor
1/4 watt resistors of values – 470KΩ, 68KΩ, 39KΩ, 8.2KΩ, 1KΩ, 1.8KΩ, 220Ω
Infrared emitter LED (880nm, 5mm)
Infrared phototransistor (5mm)

Other things needed are included in our list of cheapest Arduino kit. We have the schematic as PDF file : pulse_sensor_schematic.pdf.

There Is No Pulse Sensor With Pulse Oximeter….Hmmmm

Yes, there is one F/OSS project for Pulse Oximeter :

https://github.com/Protocentral/AFE4490_Oximeter

1	https://github.com/Protocentral/AFE4490_Oximeter

Human trying since many years :

https://hackaday.com/tag/pulse-oximeter/
https://morf.lv/implementing-pulse-oximeter-using-max30100
https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/products/analog/sensors-and-sensor-interface/MAX30102.html

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https://hackaday.com/tag/pulse-oximeter/

https://morf.lv/implementing-pulse-oximeter-using-max30100

https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/products/analog/sensors-and-sensor-interface/MAX30102.html

That is MAX30102 Pulse Oximeter Heart Rate Sensor Module. It costs under $20 with Made in China technology. Codes are here :

https://github.com/Protocentral/Pulse_MAX30102
https://github.com/sparkfun/SparkFun_MAX3010x_Sensor_Library

1 2	https://github.com/Protocentral/Pulse_MAX30102 https://github.com/sparkfun/SparkFun_MAX3010x_Sensor_Library

We were not talking about the complicated thing.

Tagged With email@ protocentral com

Arduino Pulse Sensor Guide : Modules And DIY Pulse Sensor

Arduino Pulse Sensor Guide : Modules

Arduino Pulse Sensor Guide : Modules

There Is No Pulse Sensor With Pulse Oximeter….Hmmmm

About Abhishek Ghosh

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