gas and carbon monoxide test

lfreeze

I am working on a gas/carbon monoxide alarm arrangement. I am using the MQ-5 and
The MQ-7 sensor boards with a propeller-1 monitoring transmissions from a TI msp430 2553. I plan on very carefully using the gas stove as a source Of Gas to test the analog output of the gas sensor boards. I am not sure how to test the Carbon monoxide board. My first thought was to use the exhaust pipe of the car (outside of course).Can someone suggest a better (safer) way to run tests?

Thanks for any comments/help

PropGuy2

I used to work on a military contract to detect nerve & mustard gas - obviously can't use the real thing, nor should you either in your case with gas /carbon monoxide!
A search of the Internet will lead you to "Chemical Simulants" that have the exact chemical signature as the gas you are testing for - but are harmless to work with.
For example you can use ordinary solvents: alcohol, acetone, any of the many organic solvents, to possibly simulate the gas you are testing for. Very interesting work BTW

macrobeak

In industry we normally use a calibration gas mixture to check the operation of sensors;
http://www.buycalgas.com/Carbon-Monoxide-calibration-gas.aspx

lfreeze

Thanks for the responses. I will check both options.