Shannon Hicks

Most I2C devices don’t like having the power to the device cut and the reapplied, which is why the Vcc pin of the Mayfly’s I2C Grove jack is constantly powered.  All the other Grove jacks switch the power on or off, but the I2C jack always has 3.3v, even with the Mayfly is asleep.  So if you’re powering your Atlas board from any of the switched s…[Read more]

I think @srgdamiano should be able to help, since she has the best understanding of the libraries and commands used with the sim7080.

How are you connecting the sensor to the Mayfly (what pins for data and power and what jack), and are you putting the Mayfly to sleep between readings?  Is the sensor being powered constantly or are you switching off the power to the sensor between readings?

What Mayfly board version are you using?  The ClariVue10 seems to only work reliably with the Mayfly v1.1 RevB since it produces the most stable 12 volt output.  Also, we’ve found that at room temperature the ClariVue needs about 8 seconds after the switched power is applied before it will respond to any commands, and then needs another 9 s…[Read more]

Without knowing more about what board you’re using for the logger, or the software that runs on it, it’s hard to guess what the problem is with your system.  But I know that when we first used Arduino Uno boards for loggers about 10 years ago, we found that they became unreliable and inaccurate at high temperatures, both in terms of timing and…[Read more]

What board are you using for your datalogger?  And what is your battery and the model of the ESP32 you’re using?

The correct part number for U9 is bq24074, as shown in the red text at the top of the schematic symbol.  Apparently the device properties in the Eagle library that I got from Adafruit two years ago for that component have an incorrect value printed below the symbol diagram on the schematic file only, but the BOM produced from that schematic file,…[Read more]

There’s no easy way to tell your Mayfly sketch to  wait longer on initial startup, the instructions for that are buried deep in one of the supporting library files and not in the main sketch.  Usually just having the larger antenna and using it in an area with known strong cell signals during the initial activation is all that’s necessary.

One o…[Read more]

If the Mayfly reports “could not wake modem for clock sync” then that means there’s no communication between the Mayfly and the cellular module.  That usually happens when then cell module isn’t properly seated all the way in the Bee socket or the pins aren’t aligned properly.  If the bee module is correctly installed, the clock sync part of the s…[Read more]

What is the APN name that US Cellular gave you use?  Is the SIM card activated?  Have you ever used that particular SIM card on another cellular device, like a tablet or phone?  Are you sure that there is sufficient US Cellular coverage in the area where you’re using the board?  They don’t actually own any cell networks, they just piggy-back off…[Read more]

I don’t think that feature has been implemented yet, so for the time being, if you need to change ownership of a site you can email me at mayfly@envirodiy.org and I can manually change the assigned owner.

There are several different models of Maxbotix ultrasonic sensors with different types of outputs that interface with the Mayfly, so do you have a particular sensor model in mind, or have a preferred communication protocol?

Here’s my code that has been successfully working on a Mayfly v1.1 RevB board, with a Hydros21 connected to the D4-7 Grove jack (with jumper set to the switched 3v setting) and a Y-511a and our custom RS485 adapter connected to the D5-6 jack and an external (non-Mayfly) 12v source supplying power for the Y-511a.

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When we scout an area for a potential CTD sensor installation, one of the top deciding factors is whether that portion of the stream will freeze during extremely cold weather.  Almost all of our sensors are mounted in deep, continuously flowing water.   Most of the time our streams won’t freeze at all in the area around the sensor, or if they do…[Read more]

If you have the original sketch that someone wrote for the logger, then that should give you clues of how everything should be connected.  There are several different ways in which to connect a tipping bucket to a Mayfly logger, some require a circuit in between to do the actual counting (like the Trinket or an ATtiny), but we’ve had good luck…[Read more]

We’ve been using Y-511a sensors together with Gen 2 Hydros21 CTD sensors and have had no problems with communication, however we’re using our own modbus adapter (based on a MAX13412 chip) instead of the Neil’s modbus wing.  As Sara said, the sensors shouldn’t be talking the the Mayfly at the same time since the Y-511 has a 40-second warmup time,…[Read more]

Thanks for the heads up, I just updated the availability page.  We shipped more boards to Amazon before the holidays, but they haven’t restocked them yet.  Hopefully they’ll be back in stock and available soon, but in the meantime, they’re still available in 5-packs in the EnviroDIY Shop.

It sounds like you’ve got one of the older Digi LTE cell boards?  We retired most of ours in 2020 because they failed after a year or two of operation, which is why we developed our own LTEbee module based on the SIM7080.  What does the data on you microSD card say the signal strength and battery voltage is since the station went offline?

The Mayfly v1.1RevB board uses a 6-pin Tag-Connect socket for the ICSP header:  https://www.tag-connect.com/product-category/products/cables/6-pin-target

Previous versions of the Mayfly boards used standard header pins for the ICSP header, (0.5″ spacing on v1.0 and v1.1RevA, and 0.1″ spacing on v0.5 and older).

The Y511-A has a wiper motor that draws a little too much power on initial startup, so unfortunately even the newest Mayfly 1.1RevB still can’t power it directly.  Our early 1.0 prototypes handled all the various 12v sensors just fine, but the voltage regulators on that prototype have been out of stock for the past 18 months, and we’ve been…[Read more]