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@shicks
Active 13 hours, 48 minutes ago-
Shannon Hicks replied to the topic Mayfly USB Connection Problems in the forum Mayfly Data Logger 8 years, 7 months ago
If Windows doesn’t find the drivers automatically, you’ll need to install them manually. I just installed the drivers on a dozen new Window 7 machines and WindowsUpdate was able to find the correct driver each time. The FTDIchip.org site has instructions for how to do that. Note that there are 2 different drivers that need to be installed: one…[Read more]
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Shannon Hicks replied to the topic Atlas Scientific EZO sensors in the forum Miscellaneous 8 years, 7 months ago
Try this DHT sensor example. It shows you how to power the switchable Grove connectors, and you can just replace the DHT stuff with some SoftwareSerial code to use either the D6-7 or D10-11 pins for the serial comms.
Or you could use the D4-5 connector, the default jumper sets it to 3.3v constant. The D6-7 and D10-11 sockets are always…[Read more]
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Shannon Hicks replied to the topic Mayfly USB Connection Problems in the forum Mayfly Data Logger 8 years, 7 months ago
Thanks for the information JimMoore. I’ve personally used several dozen of the microUSB cables from that same shipment and haven’t had an issue with any of them, but we’ll make a note of it for future orders. I checked out the board that JohnSmutny had the issue with and it was indeed a bad mechanical contact inside the slide switch that caused…[Read more]
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Shannon Hicks replied to the topic RTC Interrupt in the forum Mayfly Data Logger 8 years, 7 months ago
Yes, if you’d prefer to use the hardware D10 interrupt, just cut the trace and solder a jumper over to the D10 pin on the header row. Then you can use “INT2” as the interrupt.
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Shannon Hicks replied to the topic RTC Interrupt in the forum Mayfly Data Logger 8 years, 7 months ago
The Mayfly has 3 hardware interrupts, D2, D3, and D10. Since the first two are part of the serial UART, that only leaves D10 as the only available hardware interrupt. On the Mayfly v0.3 board, the RTC is connect to A7, so you have to use a “pin change interrupt” library to handle an interrupt from something other than one of the hardware pins.…[Read more]
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Shannon Hicks replied to the topic Low Cost Ambient Water Quality Sensors in the forum Environmental Sensors 8 years, 7 months ago
John is right, just about any sensor you find should be able to work with the Mayfly, though you might have to add some interface circuitry or adapters depending on the power requirements and communication protocol of the sensor. I’ve got Mayfly board working with digital output sensors (either TTL, RS232, or SDI-12 outputs) and analog output…[Read more]
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Shannon Hicks replied to the topic Mayfly USB Connection Problems in the forum Mayfly Data Logger 8 years, 7 months ago
The power switch on the Mayfly is a DPDT switch that has 2 functions. One pole switches the power input line to the main processor power rail, and the other other pole switches the power supplied to the FT232RL USB chip. So if there’s a defect in the switch mechanism on only one of the poles, it’s possible that the Mayfly will still power up and…[Read more]
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Shannon Hicks replied to the topic Mayfly USB Connection Problems in the forum Mayfly Data Logger 8 years, 7 months ago
The power switch on the Mayfly is a DPDT switch that has 2 functions. One pole switches the power input line to the main processor power rail, and the other other pole switches the power supplied to the FT232RL USB chip. So if there’s a defect in the switch mechanism on only one of the poles, it’s possible that the Mayfly will still power up and…[Read more]
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Shannon Hicks replied to the topic Mayfly USB Connection Problems in the forum Mayfly Data Logger 8 years, 7 months ago
I’m not aware of any other issues with the power switch or USB connectivity. What operating system are you using? And did you buy the Starter Kit that comes with it’s own microUSB cable, or are you using your own cable? I’ve had connection issues with microUSB jack/cable combinations on other devices, so maybe try a different cable and see if…[Read more]
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Shannon Hicks posted a new activity comment 8 years, 8 months ago
On the top of the board near the FTDI header there’s an unpopulated 2-pin header for an Aux 5v input. Most people won’t use it, but I put it there for the experienced users who want the flexibility of different power options. I’ve been powering several boards like that lately, I’ll try to write about it on the Hardware section of the support…[Read more]
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Shannon Hicks posted a new activity comment 8 years, 8 months ago
We are aware of the availability issue for customers outside North America and are looking into different options for international sales.
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Shannon Hicks posted a new activity comment 8 years, 8 months ago
The boards are now available on Amazon: http://envirodiy.org/mayfly-boards-now-available-on-amazon/
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Shannon Hicks wrote a new post 8 years, 8 months ago
We are excited to announce that our Mayfly Data Logger boards are now available for purchase on Amazon!
Mayfly Data Logger Board
Mayfly Data Logger Starter Kit
We’ve also published new information […]
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Shannon Hicks posted a new activity comment 8 years, 8 months ago
Good news – the boards finally arrived a few days ago, I’m now working on getting everything ready for the online sales, details to follow shortly!
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Shannon Hicks posted a new activity comment 8 years, 9 months ago
We’re still waiting for the first big manufacturing run to get delivered. Once it does, we’ll get it to the distributor as soon as we can. In the meantime, we’ve been working on documentation and instructions, so look for postings that info on this site early next week.
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Shannon Hicks posted a new activity comment 8 years, 9 months ago
What’s shown in the photo is a basic analog-output pressure transducer made by Keller-America. It’s been awhile since I checked the price on them, and the ones we used were part of a deeply discounted surplus lot. I think they are usually around $300 or higher, depending on the precision and type of output signal.
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Shannon Hicks posted a new activity comment 8 years, 9 months ago
The board we used in the photos (Seeeduino Stalker 3.2) isn’t available anymore. I have a colleague who was going to post a full writeup tutorial for this ultrasonic logger build, but since no one can replicate it due to the obsolete hardware, it got put on hold. Once the new Mayfly board is available (very, very soon), we can do a tutorial of…[Read more]
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Hey,
I have ordered an Seeduino v2.3, Maxbotix 7389 and a gprsBee rev. 6. Then I found this page ,-)
Nice to see, that these three parts are already in use together …Steve, could you please provide some more information about your setup and software?
Thanks, AnselmPS: The stalker v2.3 was still available somewhere in china with the…[Read more]
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We have been field-testing various configurations of the ultrasonic station and wanted to be sure we had the best design before publishing the instructions. Some colleagues and I are having a build session later this week where we will be assembling several Mayfly ultrasonic sensor stations, and our goal is to make a tutorial out of the photos…[Read more]
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I’ve been lurking here for sometime, but have just had to sign up! I’m based in the UK and am looking into creating a similar water depth sensor here – I can’t buy the Mayfly as Amazon.com won’t ship it to the UK and its not available on .co.uk unfortuntely 🙁
I just wanted to know though, are you working on the writeup for the Mayfly board?
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Shannon Hicks posted a new activity comment 8 years, 10 months ago
What’s the supply voltage (Vcc) of this board? I’m wondering if you designed it for a 5-volt I2C bus like the Uno, or if it’ll work with 3.3v systems, like the Mayfly or Raspberry Pi.
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These are all 3.3V I2C sensors.
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Distance is possibly an issue if the wiring to logger isn’t short. For the enclosure application, I thought about dropping a small teensyLC in the base with TTL/RS232 interface so that a serial connection could be made from enclosure to logger. Teensy would handle all the sensor data requests and then just feed a csv over TTL or RS232 depending on…[Read more]
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Shannon Hicks posted a new activity comment 8 years, 10 months ago
They are being manufactured right now, but we can’t announce availability and online store info until everything is finalized. There was a slight slowdown in the process due to the holiday in China and its effect on the supply chain, but we’re still hoping to have them for sale very shortly.
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Shannon Hicks posted a new activity comment 8 years, 11 months ago
Here’s an update for everyone wondering about the board availability. We went through one more round of design updates to add some extra features like an onboard FTDI-USB chip and a 5-volt boost regulator to generate 5v for any sensors or devices you want to power. The final Mayfly production run should be ready for purchase at an online…[Read more]
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Can’t wait….Can you tell us which online retailer ? The 5V boost will be really useful. I’m using several Mbili with power boost to 5V to power long 1-wire sensor bus.
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They are being manufactured right now, but we can’t announce availability and online store info until everything is finalized. There was a slight slowdown in the process due to the holiday in China and its effect on the supply chain, but we’re still hoping to have them for sale very shortly.
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The boards are now available on Amazon: http://envirodiy.org/mayfly-boards-now-available-on-amazon/
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Any update on Mayfly availability? Thanks!
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And a second request for update…desperate to get my hands on one (or more)…
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We’re still waiting for the first big manufacturing run to get delivered. Once it does, we’ll get it to the distributor as soon as we can. In the meantime, we’ve been working on documentation and instructions, so look for postings that info on this site early next week.
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Great to see these are now available. Unfortunately i’m in the UK and amazon doesn’t appear willing to ship this item internationally. Is there any likelihood that you will be able to ship internationally in the near future?
These look really promising. I second Davids comment though. I would very much like to test the Mayfly but Amazon are not allowing shipping to the UK.
We are aware of the availability issue for customers outside North America and are looking into different options for international sales.
Great! Looking forward to getting my hands on a couple of these.
A basic question about power:
Ideally, we would like to use 12V ~7aH AGM lead acid batteries to power the Mayfly instead of the 3.7V LiPo. We are planning to use the Mayfly for a pretty power intensive sapflux installation that requires small heaters to be powered directly off of 12V batteries. If we could use the 12V battery to also power the Mayfly that would be ideal.
1. Is it possible to power the Mayfly with a non LiPo battery? What about a voltage >3.7? I know that the Uno can accept 7-12V, but I don’t see an obvious Vin port in the pictures of the Mayfly.
2. I assume that the LiPo battery charging capabilities that are built in to the Mayfly are not suited for a Lead Acid AGM charging, correct? Do you have any suggestions for a low cost charge controller? We have used sunsavers in the past, but I’d love to hear any other suggestions.
Thanks!
On the top of the board near the FTDI header there’s an unpopulated 2-pin header for an Aux 5v input. Most people won’t use it, but I put it there for the experienced users who want the flexibility of different power options. I’ve been powering several boards like that lately, I’ll try to write about it on the Hardware section of the support page soon. The input voltage should not exceed 6v or certain components on the Mayfly could be damaged. While we could have included a regulator to handle higher voltages, it would require dissipating lots of heat, so in the interest of keeping things simple, we opted to limit the input voltage to 5v.
An easy way to power the Mayfly with a 12v battery would be to use a 12v-to-5v stepdown converter with microUSB plug. There are many of them on Amazon for around $10-15. They are commonly used for connecting power in cars for dashcams and GPS units. Some of them also have an inline power switch and/or a fuse. I’ve been using one with a 12v, 18ah SLA battery and it works great.
The charging circuitry on the Mayfly is only suitable for a lipo battery. You’ll need a completely different solar charge controller if you’re trying to charge a large capacity 12v battery. I can write more about that topic in another blog post that’s specifically about solar panels.
Neat! I’m looking forward to trying this out! I believe it will help me to get around some limitations of the proprietary logger I’m using and allow me to make sensor installations that would not be economically viable otherwise.
Is there any more info on availability in Europe ? Nothing on Sodaq website and I’ve emailed them but no response.
International sales options are complicated so we don’t have a option yet ,and I don’t have an estimate on when we might be able to announce something.