[Shannon Hicks]

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, followed by a 8-second sampling time, so the Mayfly doesn’t hear anything from the Y-511a for almost a minute after it is powered up.  I’m not sure if the modbus wing you’re using has a level-shifter on the SDI-12 data line, but we found that most level-shifting circuits cause inconsistent communication with the Meter Group sensors, probably because the logic high level of their sensors is only 3.6v, which in our experience is safe enough to connect directly to the Mayfly’s digital input.

[Shannon Hicks]

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.

[Shannon Hicks]

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?

[Shannon Hicks]

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).

[Shannon Hicks]

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 unable to find similar components that are suitable for all the various 12v sensors people typically operate from a Mayfly board.  I’m still testing parts and designs so once we’ve found one that works and is readily available from the manufacturer and have fully tested it to guarantee that it works with all of our typical sensors, then we’ll be able to produce the RS-485 modbus adapter board.  I don’t have any definite dates of when that might happen, but I’ll certainly let everyone know once we’ve got a estimated availability date.

[Shannon Hicks]

With the Y511-A sensors we have (that were purchased about a year ago), whenever you apply 12v to the power wire, the wiper spins continuously in one direction for 5 full revolutions and then “parks” the wiper blade in the home position.  Then it pauses for a few seconds, then it performs the actual back-and-forth cleaning wipe motion (not full rotations).  We had a couple of them malfunction earlier this year and behave as you’re describing:  continuous motor rotation and no measurement data.  We had to ship them back to Yosemitech for repair.  I suspect that there’s something internal that fails to sense when the wiper blade is at the “home” position, so it just keeps spinning until eventually it times out.  You should contact Yosemitech and see what they recommend, but it’s likely that you’ll need to send it to them for repair.

[Shannon Hicks]

No, the only official way to buy a single Mayfly board or starter kit is through our listings on Amazon, while 5-packs can be purchased through the Shop on this website.

[Shannon Hicks]

It should work fine, assuming you’ve wired the device to the Mayfly properly (did you connect the Ground of the Mayfly to the Ground of the modem?)  What is the operating voltage and communication voltage of the modem?  The mega2560 is a 5V board, while the Mayfly is a 3.3v board.

[Shannon Hicks]

Sorry I didn’t catch this earlier when I looked at your code.  But in line 39, you included the wrong library.  All of the various Mayfly board versions we’ve ever built have the ADS1115 chip on them, so you need to specify the ADS1115 library and no the ADS1015 library (because the 1015 is the lower-resolution version of the chip).  So line 39 if your code should say:  #include <Adafruit_ADS1115.h>

[Shannon Hicks]

I think you might be mistaking the monthly fee with the initial $20 auto-pay amount they charge to maintain a positive balance in your prepaid account.  The typical plan we recommend is the Maker Flexible plan, which is $0.60 per month (whether you use the card or not) and then $0.40 per MB of actual data usage.  Most of our loggers (when transmitting at 5 minute intervals) use about 10 MB per month, so the total monthly fee for each station is around $5.

You can “pause” the service through the Hologram website dashboard, but all that does is prevent your station from being able to make a connection to the internet, but you’ll still be charged the $0.60 monthly fee even for paused stations.  If you deactivate the card for winter to avoid the montly fee, then you can’t reactivate that same card in the spring, you’ll have to buy a new card ($5), swap it out with the physical card in the station, and pay the initial activation fee for the new card.  So if you’re not going to be collecting data over the winter, it’s easier to just turn off the Mayfly logger station, keep the cards active in you plan, and just pay the $0.60 monthly fee until spring and then turn the Mayfly stations back on when you redeploy them and everything will operate like it did the previous year.

[Author]

Posts