Shannon Hicks

We’d need more information in order to troubleshoot your problem.  Are you using an EnviroDIY Mayfly board, and if so what hardware version do you have?  What cell or wifi board are you using?  What Arduino sketch are you using on the board and are you using it mostly as-is, or did you rewrite any part of it or the supporting libraries?

I found a schematic in your github repo, my suggestion would be to power everything external to the Mayfly with its own beefy power source, especially the relay bank.  It looks like you’re currently using the main 3.3v regulator of the Mayfly to power the relays and maybe some other things, which is probably what’s causing the brownout.  There’s a…[Read more]

What version of the Mayfly board are you using?  And how are you powering the Mayfly?  Is the Mayfly providing the power for the sensor and vacuum pump too, or is that from a different source?

You could also try putting an ammeter in line with the main battery (with no solar or USB connected) to monitor the current of the board during use.  When it’s sleeping, you should see a current of about 0.6mA  for your configuration.  If you measure a sleeping current above 1mA, then something is probably wrong, either the board isn’t properly sl…[Read more]

They’re spring-loaded quick connect jacks.  The wires go in the round holes not the rectangular ones.  If you tug on them and they don’t come loose, then they should be connected properly.  If they pop out, then you’ve just got to insert them further.  I usually use my fingers, but you could also use something like needle-nose pliers to push one…[Read more]

A description of the operation of the LEDs on the Mayfly board can be found here:  https://www.envirodiy.org/mayfly/hardware/details-and-specs/

For the one you asked about, it’s under part C:

C- Power LEDs and DIP switches:  LEDs indicate board power (green) and USB power (orange).  Useful for easily seeing if the board is on and if USB power is…[Read more]

The Yosemitech Y-511A needs 12v to operate, so it won’t be happy if you modify the Mayfly jumper to set the 12v output to 9v.  I’m not familiar with the operation of the modbus wing you’re using so I can’t comment on its operation, but we have a new modbus adapter board with it’s own beefy 12v-boost Grove adapter board that will be available in…[Read more]

There should be little adjustment screws or stops that allow you to calibrate the sensor to tip at exactly one millimeter of rainfall (which is 5.0 ml of water).  Did you try adjusting them and doing the calibration procedure before deployment?  You also have to ensure that the sensor is installed completely level and that it is mounted to a f…[Read more]

Can you share the model number and manufacturer of the rain gage, or attach a picture of it that shows the tipping mechanism?

It sounds like things aren’t connected to the Mayfly board properly.  The 3.7v Lipo battery gets connected to only one of the JST jacks labeled LIPO BATT on the Mayfly board, then a 6v solar panel gets connected to only one of the jacks labeled either SOLAR1 or SOLAR2, and not both.  Are you using one of the old style glossy 3.5w panels, or one o…[Read more]

The very bottom-left corner of the schematic for board v1.1 mentions the two charge rates, which you can control using solder jumper SJ15.  Here’s the description of that jumper from the Jumper Settings page:

SJ15:  Lipo battery charge rate:  500mA (default) or 1A.  This jumper allows you to select the maximum charger output current of the onb…[Read more]

If your sample/transmission rate is set to 15 minutes and you were getting that poor of a battery life out of your stations, then they definitely aren’t going into sleep mode, so I’d suggest investigating the code that’s running on the Mayfly to learn more about its behavior.

James, your station seems to be using power at a rate much higher than a usual CTD station.  Our Mayfly v1.1 boards with EnviroDIY sim7080 LTE board and a CTD sensor will see a decrease in the battery voltage overnight of 0.045v during a 12 hour period with absolutely no sunlight, and transmitting the data to the portal every 5 minutes.  Your s…[Read more]

What version of Mayfly board do you have?  And what brand of cellular board?  There are a lot of combinations of hardware on EnviroDIY stations, and some are much more efficient than others.  Also, do you have a spare Lipo battery that you can fully charge separately in your office and then put it into the station?  If your logger is only wor…[Read more]

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]