Shannon Hicks

The sensor manufacturer has assured me that the sensors will work at 3.3v, and we’ve had experience with hundreds of them and concur, but they’ll also work just fine with the jumper set to 5v instead, so it’s your choice.

This thread is for overall technical questions about the hardware on the Mayfly v1.1 boards, so if you have other questions…[Read more]

The Mayfly makes 3.3v, 5v, or 12v, as set by the jumpers on the headers next to each Grove socket.  The ClariVue sensors need 9 or 12v, but at lower temperatures (below 5C) we’ve found that some of the sensor will stop working because the Mayfly can’t produce enough current at 12v at low temperatures.  So to fix this issue, you can just change t…[Read more]

There are multiple sources of power on the Mayfly boards.  There’s 3.3v that’s always on, then there’s a separate 3.3v regulator that can be switched on and off by setting pin D22 high or low in your code.  There’s also a separate 5v boost regulator (and on Mayfly v1.x) a 12v boost regulator, both of which are also controlled by D22 in your s…[Read more]

Thanks for the screenshot, that shows the Mayfly board is being seen by the computer, so it’s not a cable or Mayfly issue.  But Windows doesn’t know how to use the Mayfly correctly as a USB device because Windows didn’t automatically install the necessary drivers.  I’m assuming this is the first time you’ve connected a Mayfly v1.x board to this p…[Read more]

We use Android devices for any portable interfaces in the field, along with an FTDI cable attached to the 6-pin FTDI header of the Mayfly.  The Mayfly v1.1 has it’s own CP2102 USB chip on board that works through the USB-C jack on the Mayfly, but Android devices can’t natively use it because they don’t recognize the CP2102.  Plus with the i…[Read more]

If you disconnect your Mayfly board from the computer, does COM3 still show up as an active device on your computer?  I’m guessing that COM3 is actually another com port on your machine, like a bluetooth or other USB device on the motherboard.  If your Windows computer correctly identifies the Mayfly board, it will shows up as “Silicon Labs C…[Read more]

I spent the entire weekend trying to recreate the SDI-12 communication issue with the ClariVue sensors by placing a bunch of Mayfly loggers and turbidity sensors in my freezer and refrigerator in various combinations.  I was able to isolate the problem to the Mayfly v1.1 boards not being able to produce sufficient instantaneous current at 12…[Read more]

We’ve never had any hardware failures of our sim7080 module in the field when using the sketch mentioned above.  With hundreds of them deployed in the past 18 months, the only problem we occasionally see (one or two stations a month) is where they stop responding to the Mayfly board and kind of “lock up” and need to be reset.  This is usually a…[Read more]

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?