Shannon Hicks

As Neil mentioned above, the yellow LED that is labeled SOLAR only indicates when a charge current is being applied to a battery, so if a battery if fully charged (~4.2v), the LED will not be on.  The charging circuity of the Mayfly v1.1 boards is configured so that the solar panel provides voltage directly to the Mayfly’s main power regulators…[Read more]

The components on the Mayfly circuit board are rated to withstand the industrial temperature range of -40C to +85C.  Here in Pennsylvania, our loggers don’t normally see that full range during normal deployments, but this summer we frequently reached almost 60C with one of our loggers that is mounted in an open field inside a clear plastic…[Read more]

Mayfly v1.x power usage (with no external sensors attached) and both LED dipswitches off (the brown/white slide switches between the main power switch and the vertical SD card socket) is as follows:

Mayfly current when board is powered and idle: 6.5 mA
Mayfly current when MCU put to sleep and no microSD card in socket: 0.27 mA (or 270 uA)
Mayfly…[Read more]

End device certification for an open source DIY project like this is nearly impossible, since there’s an infinite number of combinations that users can configure their station with various equipment, accessories, antennas, not to mention all the ways they can change the actual code running on the main processor board.  That’s why we try to use…[Read more]

We’ve release several different Mayfly Data Logger hardware versions in the past few years, so I’d need to know which version you’re using.   I’m assuming a v1.0 or 1.1 since you mentioned deactivating the LEDs using the dip switches.   But it also depends on the sampling interval you’re planning to use (time between measurements when the May…[Read more]

The data file on your Mayfly’s memory card contains the UUID information for the original station, so even though you’ve moved the station to a new physical location and created a brand new site on MMW for the new location, the data file still contains the UUID codes that correspond to the original MMW site, and the database is smart enough to…[Read more]

No, the old LTEbee Adapter should not be used with a Mayfly v1.x board.  You simply plug the Digi board directly into the Mayfly v1.x board with no adapter at all.  Make the changes to the jumpers I mentioned above and you’ll enable the white and blue status LEDs that are built into the new Mayfly boards.  The only thing missing is the orange RS…[Read more]

The purpose of the now-discontinued “EnviroDIY LTEbee Adapter” was to allow people to use the Digi brand LTE cellular module with the Mayfly v0.5 boards by doing 3 main thing:  providing sufficient power (current) to the cell module, connecting pin 13 of the Digi board to pin 12 of the Mayfly bee socket, and giving the user some LEDs to show…[Read more]

Onewire sensors like the DS18b20 don’t like to have their bus power cycled on and off.   Back when I last experimented with them (with a different sketch not related to ModularSensors), if you’ve got the sensor connected to the switched power supply, you had to do “DSsensors.begin();” each time the logger woke and powered up the switched power b…[Read more]

The polarity of your battery pack is backwards, which is why your board was damaged.  We mention the caution about battery polarity in multiple places on this website, and also in the EnviroDIY Monitoring Station Manual, and specifically in Section 6.1 (https://www.envirodiy.org/knowledge-base/building-an-envirodiy-monitoring-station/).  I’m a…[Read more]

We’ve installed several stations in tidal areas by attaching the sensor to a custom apparatus mounted to docks or piers.  What kind of sensors are you planning to install?

Yes, the update made to the ModularSensors code in in order to fix Hydros 21 is backwards compatible.  I mentioned it last week in this post: https://www.envirodiy.org/topic/hydros-21-decagon-ctd-reading-error/#post-17066

It seems that in the past year Meter Group made some changes to the amount of time the CTD sensors need to take a…[Read more]

When you’re connected to the Mayfly with your computer, open the Arduino IDE’s Serial Monitor and check the settings of the dropdown box in the lower right hand part of the windows next to the baud rate.  It should be set to “No line ending”.  If you have it set to anything else, you’ll usually get an error when setting the address using that s…[Read more]

Yes, it’s just one line (currently line 107) of the MeterHydros21.h file that contains the most important change, which is this line:  #<span class=”pl-k”>define</span> <span class=”pl-en”>HYDROS21_MEASUREMENT_TIME_MS</span> <span class=”pl-c1″>1000</span>

The previous setting was 500 milliseconds but it turns out the new Gen 2 CTD sensors need…[Read more]

We’ve seen this behavior with some of the new CTD sensors as well.  It seems that when you give it a new address using the b_address_change sketch, the sensor needs to be told the new address more than once in order for it to actually make the change.  Meaning, run the sketch and observe the text on the Serial Monitor.  For a new sensor it will sa…[Read more]

Thanks for the followup.  Plugging an EnviroDIY sim7080 LTE bee board into one of the old Digi bee adapter boards will definitely cause problems, since there are different pinouts for the 2 cell modules, as well as different supply voltages provided to the pins, which could damage the sim7080 bee.  Also note that upgrading a Mayfly board from a D…[Read more]

For anyone reading this in 2022, the posts above in this thread are from 2016 to 2019, and the operating voltage and other electrical specification have changed with the Mayfly boards released in the past year.  The older Mayfly v0.5 boards had completely different input voltage limits compared to the new Mayfly v1.0 and v1.1 boards.  So the a…[Read more]

That station appears to be running the older configuration of Mayfly v0.5b and Digi LTE board (with an EnviroDIY LTEBee adapter in between the Digi board and the Mayfly), correct?  There could be several reasons why it’s behaving like that, and it’s difficult to tell unless you start swapping parts or disconnecting things one at a time to see…[Read more]

No estimate yet, I’m still working on the redesign and will then have to get them manufactured once we’ve fully tested them.

DaveG, since you inherited a monitoring station from a previous owner, you didn’t get the full training we give station owners when we teach a workshop and/or install a station for them.  I would suggest looking through all of our EnviroDIY Monitoring Station Manual  since we thoroughly document all of the information about station assembly, i…[Read more]