Shannon Hicks

That’s what the data looks like when the CTD sensor gets disconnected from the Mayfly. The turbidity sensor is still being read, and there was no change in turbidity around the time of the data loss. So you can rule out someone stealing the sensors, or that it was damaged during a flood event, since there doesn’t seem to be an event happening.…[Read more]

The code we put on your loggers a few months ago needs to be replaced with the newer version because the latest updates account for the addition of Verizon as a carrier, and make a few other tweaks to the basic functions of the station we’ve made since deploying a few dozen LTE stations in the last month and examining their performance. All you…[Read more]

The Mayfly stations with 4G-LTE modules that we deployed for you earlier this year were all configured to only use AT&T as the provider, but since then we have tweaked the code to allow them to work with either AT&T or Verizon, whichever carrier has the strongest signal at your location. It still uses the same Hologram SIM card, it’s just a…[Read more]

Jake, the stations we installed for you a few months ago were programmed with code that set the low voltage threshold at 3.7, which is fine in areas with lots of sun. But since your stations are more shaded, and you’re in a higher latitude, your battery will probably hover around 3.7 most of the time, so lowering your transmission cutoff…[Read more]

It’s actually a microSD card slot, not a miniSD. And no, we don’t sell the adapter separately due to the complexity and cost of selling one small item on Amazon. I could sell a multi-pack of them on Amazon, but I’m not sure there’s much demand for that, since everyone who has previously wanted an adapter either needed only one or ended up buying…[Read more]

There is no built-in antenna on the Xbee LTE module, or any cell module for that matter. I’ve tried a variety of antennas, this is the one we usually use because it’s cheap and fairly rugged and fits easily inside our enclosures: https://www.digikey.com/products/en?keywords=1837-1003

Just use caution with the u.fl connector, it is not designed…[Read more]

The APN for Hologram is now “hologram” (with a lower case h) so you might try changing your code to that. But I have lots of older modules that have been out for years and still use the old konekt APN (this was Hologram’s old name) so I’m not sure if that’s the issue. Do you have an appropriate LTE antenna connected to the CELL jack (and not the…[Read more]

Mayfly D22 is not a physical pin on the board, it’s processor pin 22, which means you set it high or low using digitalWrite commands in your sketch, just like you would with pin 8 or 9 to turn the red or green LEDs on or off. If you’re new to Arduino or the Mayfly, you might try working through example sketches or workshop sketches in our Github…[Read more]

Are you referring to the two Grove ports in the lower left corner of the Mayfly? All of the Grove ports (and the Sw3 and Sw5 pins in the headers) are designed to only be powered when you set pin D22 high. This is so that you can turn any external sensors on or off independently from other things on the Mayfly. Setting D22 high turns on the…[Read more]

It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on with your wires from the photo, but you should make sure your separate power supplies are sharing a common ground. If you’ve got 12v going to the sensor and 5v going to the board, you need to have the ground of both of those supplies (or batteries) connected to the same ground as the Mayfly.

I edited your original post to put the code into the Code Snippet tool.

I check every one of the Mayfly boards thoroughly before they get sent out to Amazon, so it’s possible that one with an FTDI or USB jack issue slipped by since that’s the only part of it that I don’t check. Send me an email to mayfly@envirodiy.org and I’ll see what I can do…[Read more]

I edited your post to move the sketch code into code snippet box. Next time, use the “Add Code Snippet” button at the top of the text editor box when you’re writing a post or comment. It makes it much easier to read, especially for long sketches.

It’s very easy to add an integer or characters to a string, you did it correctly with the line…[Read more]

The Mayfly logger processor is just like any other Arduino board, and loading sketches onto it is just like any other Arduino board. The uploaded sketch is “burned” into the microprocessor chip in the center of the board. The microSD card slot is just an optional device to allow users to store recorded variables or other data during the…[Read more]

The Mayfly is not designed to have 2 microSD cards inserted at the same time. No one should ever insert two cards. The reason for the second vertical socket is for people who have the logger mounted inside an enclosure that makes it difficult to remove the card in the regular horizontal socket. Various electrical irregularities will occur if…[Read more]

What you’re describing with the microSD card is definitely not normal. I’ve encountered it only a few other times in over 1000 boards, and it’s usually caused by a bent pin inside the microSD socket that causes a short circuit when a card is inserted. Is this a brand new board? And are you seeing this behavior with the microSD socket that’s…[Read more]

It sounds like your PC is just not seeing the Mayfly. You should make sure the Mayfly is turned on at the main power switch, and that the small power-select slide switch is set to the USB/Lipo setting (not Ext). Sometimes the switches can be a little glitchy, so you can try sliding them back and forth to make sure they’re getting good contact.…[Read more]

The 4G LTE modules we use are brand new and have only been available for a few weeks. I just stocked the LTE bee adapter board in our Amazon storefront last week too, so the materials you need for building the signal tester are so new that I haven’t had a chance to document the building and programming process. I’ll be building a few more once I…[Read more]