Shannon Hicks

ChanCafun is right, you definitely don’t want to connect any panel to the Mayfly’s SOLAR jack that has a voltage higher than 6 volts. I wrote a post about solar panel options earlier this year: https://envirodiy.org/topic/dying-batteries-in-winter/#post-2051

Since that post, we’ve released the Mayfly v0.5 that has the option for directly…[Read more]

The code I posted above is for when you use a ADS1115 16-bit ADC. If you’re using a standard Uno or Mega board, you’ll have to use the regular 10-bit ADC, unless you’re planning to use a separate ADS1115 breakout. But assuming you’re okay with the lower resolution of the 10-bit ADC, just use the standard analogRead command and then convert the…[Read more]

We haven’t shared the board layout yet, but all of the necessary information is in the schematic. The aux ADC on the Mayfly is the ADS1115. Its Vcc is tied to the 3.3v supply of the board, so it’s not possible for it to sample anything greater than that. You can use the jumpers near the Grove connectors on the board to provide a 5v excitation…[Read more]

Unfortunately we currently don’t have an option for purchasing the Mayfly outside of the US.

There are several different ways you can approach this. The easiest option is to use a Max232 chip like the one you mentioned from Sparkfun (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11189). If your sensor has a DB-9 connector on the end rather than bare wires, you can use one of these:…[Read more]

You haven’t mentioned what battery you are using. But the problem with using a solar panel on the USB port is that the voltage supplied by the panel in direct sunlight will cause a transistor switch on the Mayfly to essentially “disconnect” the battery from the processor power supply and use the voltage from the panel to supply power to the…[Read more]

You say you use these solar panels to power other microcontrollers. Is this a bare solar panel that outputs 6v in full sunlight and 0v in the dark, or is it one of those solarpanel/battery combo things that has a built-in battery so it always outputs a constant even in the dark?

The solar panel shouldn’t be connected to the USB port. Solar panels should only be connected to the JST jack labeled “SOLAR”. The LiPo charger circuitry on the Mayfly will use the solar panel voltage to charge the battery.

If you connect a USB cable to the USB jack, then the charging circuitry will use that voltage, and yes, the battery will…[Read more]

The Mayfly boards are back in stock. The Starter Kit inventory is getting low, but more of those are on the way to Amazon and will be in stock next week.

A large number of boards were purchased earlier today and that depleted the inventory. There are still a few starter kits available. I will be shipping more boards and kits to Amazon later this week, and will post here when they are available for purchase again.

Sure, if the manual says it’s okay to ground the sensor’s negative signal wire, then you can just connect the sensor’s ground and negative signal wires to a “GROUND” pin on the Mayfly, and then connect the sensor’s positive signal wire to one of the Mayfly’s auxiliary analog pins. The easiest way to do this is with one of these…[Read more]

The Apogee SP-110 will work fine with the Mayfly. Just connect the signal wires to AA0 and AA1 (the aux analog inputs) and do a differential measurement. You’ll need to use the Adafruit_ADS1x15 library and look at the example for differential measurements.

We always use the amplified output versions of Apogee’s solar sensors instead of the…[Read more]

SJ-12 is for enabling the pullup resistor on D10. SJ-1 is for changing the square wave alarm signal from the RealTimeClock from A7 (default) to D10. As stated on the Jumper Settings page (https://envirodiy.org/mayfly/hardware/jumper-settings/), you should never use SJ-12 if you’ve also changed SJ-1 to D10. The two can’t be used together or it…[Read more]

We use sensors from a variety of companies, and most times every sensor on our stations will come from a different company. This is because we like to mix and match the sensors for the exact needs of the location and research questions being answered. What parameters are you interested in measuring?

I have used several solar radiation sensors with my Mayfly boards, so it’s possible, however it really depends on what the excitation voltage of the sensor is, and what the analog signal’s output voltage is. Can you tell me the make and model of the sensor, or at least what are the power requirements and output voltage?

The temperature compensation sensor for the Maxbotix sensor doesn’t interact with the Mayfly at all. It’s connected directly to the ultrasonic sensor’s pin #1, so the Mayfly doesn’t need to know anything about it. All the Mayfly does is capture the serial data that comes from the sensor’s data pin.

I’ll be away from my desk most of the day…[Read more]

The Mayfly boards and starter kits are fully stocked on Amazon, as well as the protoshield and a new listing for the Grove-to-3.5mmStereo adapter board we use for connecting Decagon Devices sensors to the Mayfly: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0725Y7B4B