Shannon Hicks

Have you had any luck getting it to work?  If not, have you tried opening the Arduino Serial Monitor to see what the Mayfly prints to your computer when the Mayfly starts up and after each attempted sensor reading?  You can also email your sketch to me at mayfly@envirodiy.edu if you’d like me to take a look at it to see if it’s possibly a code issue.

It’s been a while since we’ve used Xbee modules with our Mayfly boards, so I don’t remember all the tricks to configuring the routers and coordinators, but your Mayfly code looks correct to me.  Have you tried removing the wake and sleep commands and just leave the Xbee module constantly powered to see if that helps?  Are you using the Mayfly v…[Read more]

If you’re talking about the external solar panels that we ship with the EnviroDIY Monitoring Station Kit, they are made by Voltaic Systems, and they offer a variety of extension cables for placing the panel further from the logger.  The connector is a basic 3.5×1.1 mm barrel jack, but it has a unique waterproof design that is better for outdoor…[Read more]

Sensor readings of -9999 mean the Mayfly logger isn’t receiving valid data from the CTD sensor.  If this is a brand new sensor, then it’s probably because the sensor SDI-12 channel number is set to the default channel of 0 (zero) and the Mayfly needs the sensor to be something other than that (because for Meter Group sensors, channel 0 means the…[Read more]

It depends on what you mean by communicate.  Are you wanting to transmit data wirelessly between a Mayfly and another Arduino-compatible device?  Or are you meaning a direct cable connection between the two devices?  Either way is possible, but it really depends on a lot of factors, like what sort of data are you transferring, how often, and wh…[Read more]

If you’re using an external FTDI or CP2102 interface board to program your Mayfly via the Mayfly’s FTDI socket, then the Mayfly dipswitch labeled USB should be turned off before connecting the external interface to the Mayfly, and it should stay off the entire time.

What version of the Arduino IDE are you using?  From your screenshot, it looks…[Read more]

You are correct, if you’re using the USB jack to power a v1.0 or v1.1 Mayfly using a 12v source, then there’s no way to interface the Mayfly with a PC for programming or viewing serial output.  However, all Mayfly boards include an FTDI jack that allows you to connect a variety of FTDI cables or adapters in order to communicate with the board in…[Read more]

It’s still in the prototype and testing phase, but the good news is the the chips that were unavailable for the past 18 months are finally available again.  If you or anyone else have specific RS485 sensors that you’re hoping to use, it would be helpful if you email me at mayfly@envirodiy.org with your sensor model information so we can make sure…[Read more]

The only differences between the v1.1 revA and revB are this:

The ICSP jack was a 2×3, 0.5″ pitch male pin header on Mayfly v1.1 revA.
The ICSP jack is now uses Tag-Connect pads for use with Pogo pins for ICSP programming for the Mayfly v1.1 revB.

And with the revA boards, there was a circuit design change after manufacturing that required me to…[Read more]

If you’ve got 4 heated sensors that require constant 12 volts, then I don’t think the Mayfly and the standard “battery/solar panel combo” is going to be sufficient.  It would be a struggle for the Mayfly to supply the necessary continuous 100ma at 12v for the heaters, in addition to powering the various sensors intermittently.  You could have a s…[Read more]

Sensors with heaters are another big challenge, especially if they run continuously.  Are the heaters powered all the time, or only when taking a sample?   Do they require 12v to operate, or was that spec just listing the power draw at 12v?

You can do some basic battery life calculations on this handy website: https://oregonembedded.com/batterycalc.htm

Standard practice is that when the Mayfly board goes to sleep in between measurements, it turns off all power supplied to the sensors and radio module.  So the power consumed when sleeping is just the bare minimum to keep the Mayfly in sleep mode, which is usually a little less than 1 milliamp.  There are ways to make it use even less in sleep m…[Read more]

It appears that the Hologram service interruption has been fixed and almost all of the cellular stations on Monitor My Watershed have returned to normal operation.  If any stations don’t rejoin the network by later today, it might require a field visit to cycle the power or possibly replace the battery.

I’m not sure what the Mayfly Data Logger Pro is.  Do you mean the program (or sketch) used to configure the board?  If you’re using one of the provided sketches we publish on Github, there’s a couple lines in each sketch that looks like this:

// Logger ID, also becomes the prefix for the name of the data file on SD card
const char* LoggerID = "…

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There’s a link to the schematic on the item page along with a link to an example sketch on Github.

The CTD sensor you have is a digital output sensor, meaning all of the measurement happens onboard the sensor and it outputs a string of 3 numbers, all the Mayfly logger board is doing is capturing those numbers and storing them.  If there was a problem with the Mayfly board, then you wouldn’t get the numbers at all, and there’s no calibration or…[Read more]

Reminder quote from the first post of this thread:   If you’ve got a basic question such as what are the board’s features or how it differs from previous versions, this is the place to ask.  If you’ve got a more complicated question or issue, then it is probably best to start your own thread.  The goal of this thread is to be a great informati…[Read more]

The analog reference voltage (AREF) pin of the ATmega1284P is broken out to the left-hand 2×10 header if you wanted to apply a voltage other than (and less than) 3.3v.  If you leave it floating and don’t specify the AREF in your code, then it’ll use the default 10-bit setting for any regular analog reading like you’ll find in most code…[Read more]

LTEbees should be back in stock later this week in the EnviroDIY shop and in a week or two on Amazon.  The big order we placed from our manufacturer back in March had some production delays but is supposed to be delivered this week.  The RS485 adapter is still not ready for release, the original design relied on the 12v boost circuitry of the M…[Read more]