Shannon Hicks

That panel wouldn’t be a problem.  Any panel that produces 6v will be safe for the Mayfly, but some cheap 6v panels actually produce higher than 6v in direct sun, so you should measure it (under load) in full sun to make sure it won’t output higher than the max input voltage of the MCP73831 (7 volts).  The solar charger on the Mayfly boards v…[Read more]

Are you using Windows or Mac for connecting to the Mayfly board?  Have you tried more than one USB cable?  Are these two unresponsive Mayfly boards brand new or are they running previously-programmed sketches?  Are there any LEDs that light up when you power the Mayfly board, either from a USB cable or a LiPo battery pack?  Is the small slide swi…[Read more]

Those sensors use Modbus RS485 protocol to communicate with a host device, which the Mayfly logger can’t do natively do with its current hardware, so you’ll need to add either an aftermarket RS485-to-TTL interface board, or build one like Anthony (@aufdenkampe) has done.  He, and a few other people on the forum, have deployed some Yosemitech…[Read more]

There’s not a direct replacement for that sensor, meaning one with the same operating specs and output.  There are some alternatives, but most are significantly more expensive, or require different interface hardware (like the Yosemitech sensors), or Turner Cyclops sensors (but require user calibration).  Unless you need a turbidity sensor i…[Read more]

Campbell Scientific discontinued the OBB3+ sensor about a year ago.  They have new turbidity sensor models in development, but I’ll let them make the announcement about when it will be ready.

No, the Meter Group sensor will not work with Modular Sensors if its address is set to ‘0’.  When it’s set to ‘0’, the data string is not in proper SDI12 delimeted format and Modular Sensors won’t be able to see anything.  Plus, the only way to get it to take multiple readings would be to turn the sensor power off and back on each time you want t…[Read more]

Meter Group sensors that use SDI12 protocol (like the Hydros 21) come from the factory with a default SDI12 address of ‘0’.  Their sensors are programmed to output a serial data string containing the current measurement upon powerup if the address is set to ‘0’.  Meter Group’s dataloggers all talk to their sensors like this.  You can see it in ac…[Read more]

I saw this happen with someone recently who was having the same issue with data not showing up online and getting the 504 response code.  Turns out it was a missing UUID in the list of sensor variables in the Arduino sketch.  When there’s a mismatch between the string you send Monitor My Watershed and what it’s expecting, you get the 504 r…[Read more]

No, there is not a built-in voltage divider on the Mayfly to protect either the 1284p’s 10-bit ADC or the auxiliary 16-bit ADS1115 ADC input.  The jumpers on the Mayfly that let you select the Switched 3.3 or Switched 5v only change the voltage that’s supplied to the Grove jack’s VCC pin.   There’s nothing to protect the Mayfly’s ADC inputs fr…[Read more]

You didn’t state what board you’re using, but if it’s an EnviroDIY Mayfly board or any other board with a processor operating voltage of 3.3v, then you’re not going to be able to read a 5v signal.  It’ll max out reading around 3.3v, and you’ll likely damage the ADC input if you run it for very long or exceed the absolute maximum voltage of the…[Read more]

The forum is very active, there have been 7 post in just the past 24 hours alone.  Do you mean this particular thread?  Almost all of our items have been in stock on either Amazon or our new EnviroDIY Shop page for several months now, but we recently sold out of LTEbee adapters on both sites because of a huge rush of large orders a few weeks a…[Read more]

If the “Switched 3v3” or “Switched 5v” is turned off, then nothing connected to those pins will be drawing power.  But if your Mayfly board is not actually going into deep sleep, then it’s sitting in idle mode instead of actually sleeping, and that’s why it’s drawing 6ma.  Wasn’t there some recent threads about how the I2C device was keeping the b…[Read more]

It sounds like your Mayfly is not actually going to sleep.  An idle Mayfly will use around 6.5mA, and a sleeping Mayfly will use between 0.25mA and 0.5mA, depending on whether you’ve got a microSD card in the slot and the type of card.  Here’s the power consumption results from Mayfly current tests:

Mayfly current when board is powered and i…[Read more]

Sounds like it might possibly be this issue:  https://www.envirodiy.org/topic/innacurate-lipo-battery-voltage-data/

I’ve only seen it happen on a few boards since that post a couple years ago.  The only fix it to replace the bad MOSFET transistor.

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It shows you’ve got “Arduino Uno” selected as your board type. If you’re using a Mayfly, you need to change that in the “Tools–> Board” menu. Once you’ve done that, also make sure you’ve selected the right COM port.  All of this is assuming you’ve already added the Mayfly board to the IDE as a supported board,…[Read more]

Thanks for the info Brian.  I heard they were switching cable outer jacket colors soon, and a few of our workshop attendees last month received Hydros 21 sensors with black cable instead of the usual red, so I’m assuming the inner wire color changed too.  Their soil moisture sensors also changed inner wire colors a few years ago, and the manual s…[Read more]

For a Meter Hydros 21 sensor, check the manual that came with the sensor to double-check that they haven’t change the wiring colors lately, but the usual pattern is red is data, white is power, and black is ground.  So connect red to D2, white to Vcc, and black to GND.  For that screw terminal board, D2 will get connected to D7 if you plug the g…[Read more]

Data plan prices are kind of a hard thing to put an exact total on, since it varies depending on various factors the station owner can choose, like cell carrier and transmitting interval, but I can give example costs for our typical configurations and deployments.  For example, most of our stations transmit around 10 parameters every 5 minutes,…[Read more]

We typically code our stations to cutoff modem transmissions at 3.45v, and file operations at 3.4v.  The Mayfly will stop operating around 3.35v, so if you set your modem cutoff too low, then you’ll stop transmitting AND stop collecting data on the memory card at the same time.  By setting the modem cutoff a little above the memory card logging c…[Read more]

The jumper for selecting whether the I2C grove port is constantly powered or switched powered was not intended to allow the user to turn off I2C devices on that Grove port.  I designed the board that way because I wanted to give users at 2 separate Grove ports that could be powered either continuously or switched, because the other 4 Grove ports…[Read more]