Mayfly USB Connection Problems

I’m not aware of any other issues with the power switch or USB connectivity. What operating system are you using? And did you buy the Starter Kit that comes with it’s own microUSB cable, or are you using your own cable? I’ve had connection issues with microUSB jack/cable combinations on other devices, so maybe try a different cable and see if that helps. Do you have an FTDI cable or adapter board that you could use to power and program the Mayfly to see if touching the power switch has the same effect?

Another thing to troubleshoot whether it’s communication or power related would be to put a sketch on the board that lights both LEDs constantly, then disconnect the USB or FTDI cable, and plug in a battery to the LiPo jack. Then you can turn the switch on and keep an eye on the LEDs while touching the switch to see if perhaps there’s a loose connection in the switch.

The power switch on the Mayfly is a DPDT switch that has 2 functions. One pole switches the power input line to the main processor power rail, and the other other pole switches the power supplied to the FT232RL USB chip. So if there’s a defect in the switch mechanism on only one of the poles, it’s possible that the Mayfly will still power up and perform normally but the power for the USB converter could be intermittent. If you’re continuing to have problems with the switch, I’ll send you an email about how to resolve this.

I received my starter kit a few days ago and could not connect to computer (surfacw-win 10) although my system worked fine with an arduino uno on another project.

The cable that came with the kit was apparently defective because the system worked fine when I used another usb/microUSB cable I had. The defective cable supplied power but no serial comm

Has anybody else had similiar problems with the supplied cable? If so, may be a quality problem with the supplier of that cable.

Thanks for the information JimMoore. I’ve personally used several dozen of the microUSB cables from that same shipment and haven’t had an issue with any of them, but we’ll make a note of it for future orders. I checked out the board that JohnSmutny had the issue with and it was indeed a bad mechanical contact inside the slide switch that caused the intermittent problem, but only on the pole that controls power to the FTDI circuitry.

I am having problems accessing the Mayfly Data Logger in Windows 10. When plugged in, it is not recognized, nor can Windows find a driver. I do have the Arduino IDE installed, as well as the board files for the Data Logger. I tried downloading the basic FTDI driver files from FTDIchip.org, however when opening the serial port only gibberish is displayed, and I still cannot write a sketch. Any place I can find the correct drivers?

As an update, I am getting this same problem on a Windows 7 machine, and 2 different Linux machines. Under the devices, it is listed as unknown, and the auto search is not finding the driver. When I try to connect or upload a sketch, I get this error: avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 10 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x2e

If Windows doesn’t find the drivers automatically, you’ll need to install them manually. I just installed the drivers on a dozen new Window 7 machines and WindowsUpdate was able to find the correct driver each time. The FTDIchip.org site has instructions for how to do that. Note that there are 2 different drivers that need to be installed: one is the FTDI drivers, and the other is the virtual com port (VCP). If the installation failed or didn’t go properly, the FTDI website has some instructions for how to update the drivers manually. If you check DeviceManager, do you see the virtual com port listed or any warnings under the ComPort or USB sections?

Another alternative is if you already have an FTDI device, like the Adafruit FTDI-Friend, the Sparkfun FTDI Breakout, or a cable with built-in FTDI, and you’ve used it with other boards, then just use that to program the Mayfly via the FTDI header.

I found that I had to manually install the Windows 7 device drivers since they did not automatically install and Windows could not find drivers by itself. The instructions on the FTDI website are not entirely clear, so here are some additional notes.
* Follow Windows 7 Installation Guide from FTDI website
* Download both the D2XX driver and VCP driver (links are given in the installation guide), choosing the drivers appropriate to your computer’s CPU (e.g. a new computer is likely 64 bit, whereas if you are using an older laptop you might need the 32 bit x86 driver)
* The D2XX and VCP drivers confusingly have the same name, so save them into separate empty folders called, say, D2XX and VCP so you can keep track of which is which
* They need to be manually unzipped after downloading
* The first driver that is being installed in the install guide instructions is the D2XX driver
* From Device Manager, right click the device name. The Mayfly will come up under “Other devices” and be called something like “Unknown device” or “FT232R USB UART”. If it is not clear which device is the Mayfly, unplug it and watch to see which device is added when you plug it back in.
* Select *Update driver software*
* Select *Browse my computer …* – browse to and select the D2XX driver folder that you downloaded and is now unzipped (e.g. “CDM v2.12.28 WHQL Certified”)
* After installing there should be a “success” message from the installer but there may also be a separate Windows tray notification saying “failed”. This appears to be normal (the failed message appears to be indicating that a COM driver is not yet installed).
* The second installation is the VCP driver, which is the COM driver.
* Basically, repeat the same steps as the first installation but this time choose the VCP driver
* After installation the mayfly should show up in Device Manager as “USB Serial Port (COMX)”, where X is the COM number assigned to the device.