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Increasing resolution and reading differential voltage

Home › Forums › Mayfly Data Logger › Increasing resolution and reading differential voltage

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    • 2018-03-31 at 3:49 PM #12208
      Iris Allen
      Participant

        Hi!

        I’m looking to use the mayfly data logger to read data from my homemade sap flow sensors. To do this I need to increase the resolution so I can read up to 0.0001 v of differential voltage. I know there are ways to increase resolution and read in differential voltage, I’m just not too sure how to get started. I currently have the mayfly starter kit; would I need to purchase any addition hook ups to make this work?

        Thanks in advance!
        Iris

      • 2018-03-31 at 11:33 PM #12209
        Shannon Hicks
        Moderator

          The Mayfly has an ADS1115 16-bit A/D converter on it. To use it, you can use the Adafruit ADS1x15 library and follow the tutorial on this page: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-4-channel-adc-breakouts?view=all

          The library comes with examples for single-ended and differential measurements. So you can follow the differential example to take a reading with the Mayfly. The ADS1115 on the Mayfly is at the default I2C address of 0x48. Using the default gain of 2/3, you’ll have a resolution of 0.1875mV per bit. So if you want 0.1mV resolution, you need to switch the gain to 2 so you’ll get 0.0625mV per bit. But that also limits the range of the maximum input voltage, so be careful not to exceed it. Exact details about the resolution and gain settings can be found in the example sketch that comes with the library.

        • 2018-04-02 at 10:57 AM #12210
          Iris Allen
          Participant

            Shannon,

            Thanks for the help! I’m going to start messing around with it this week, so I might come back with more questions soon.

            Thanks again,
            Iris

          • 2018-04-18 at 5:19 PM #12243
            David Lutz
            Participant

              Iris,

              I’d be interested to hear what you find. Here in NH we have interest in sap flow measurements for projects in conjunction with the Proctor Maple Syrup Institute at UVM. Installing Mayfly-based networks could be really interesting to them.

              Dave

            • 2018-04-19 at 5:03 PM #12249
              Iris Allen
              Participant

                Dave,

                We should get everything with the Mayfly up and working within the next month, so I’ll keep you in the loop!

                Iris

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