neilh20

For  powering I am using the new Solar2 connector.

It requires a very precise diameter solid core wire – and took me some time to find it as old fashioned “Bell Wire” 20AWG, which I got from local Lowes store.

The needs to be – 20-26 AWG solid core. It also needs exactly matched wire strippers. If the wire strippers are too small a dia, its…[Read more]

An update on measuring battery voltage. I’ve purchased a number of Mayfly1.1 for a project. And on testing one of this batch, the noise level of measuring LiPo is better – which is great.  The noise level of resistors is part of their  specification, or it might be just luck in this case.  Often a batch of noisy resistors is because the ma…[Read more]

Hi Jake, my take is its complex to be able to decode why MMW isn’t showing data ~ it needs a system look, location aspects (solar looks excellent) ,  maintenance inspection of site,  reliability of hardware/battery/mechanics reliability of software on the Mayfly, reliability of software at MMW

It would be useful to know your configuration i…[Read more]

Thanks. The project perspective is often – initial qty and then what might be follow on qtys.  Of course project planning is only a what if, and no guarantee

In my experience, one of the challenges with building an electronics board, other than the world wide supply chain issues,  is that the base cost of engineering often means that at least 5…[Read more]

@James_NZ  – I’m curious, just wondering how many RS485’s stations are you looking at and your planning project timeline.

What sort of instruments/powering are you looking to connect to.

There is a forward looking discussion on issues here, though the timeline for anything being built, I’m guessing is really dependent on specific project…[Read more]

For the solar connecter, I colour the socket and the jack in an acrylic orange so that there is a visual match. The LiIon battery in a cooler blue.   Of course have to be careful to only get the acrylic paint on the outside of the jack and not have leak inside. Its not perfect, but provides a little clue.

Suspect Mayfly1.1

The cable I was using also went bad and I’ve marked it as suspect – its a distinctive pink cable.  I’ve inspected the Mayfly USB c on Mayfly1.1 with an Eye Loupe, and it is hard to inspect but nothing jumps out, seems OK.

I did have a USB current monitor in the testing before hand, and the current had gone up to 1.2A while…[Read more]

My USB connect to a rev1.1 board appears to be failing.

It was working, and now its stop connecting to the PC, stops even causing an audible ding.

If I take the same USB C cable and plug it in to the USB C of a Rev1.0A3 it sometimes works. Usually causes an audible ding, but sometimes doesn’t appear as a com port.

I’ve rebooted my PC twice, and…[Read more]

One aspect of measurements the Mayfly does manage is the time. If the small battery gets used up, then it will reset to a default time. Another way of checking time is roughly accurate (+/ couple hours)  is when the peak temperature occurs.

I’ve been chewing and reading about LoRa for some time, and just recently been reviewing as part of student engineering project the data flow for LoRa  and LoRaWan to TTN (The Things Network) and then to ubidots.

LoRa is designed as a long distance wireless protocol, however its also has constrained packet size.

So it seems to me, at this stage…[Read more]

Here are some graphs of measured Vbat(10bit) with a software filtering that I’ve just completed. Its using a 2minute reading sample time – the electronic noise is hopefully similar when used on 15minute sampling intervals.
For the Mayfly 1.1 & Adafruit PkCell 4400mAh, I’ve run it for 4days interfacing over Modbus/RS485 in a critical voltage range…[Read more]

@craig607 yes totally agree, spit balling or back of the envelope sketch 🙂
So great – you can see I’m asking the dumb questions, and if some one has to pick up the bottles every so-often, then can also switch out the power source batterys :).

I see now how the hardware fits in, and found the schematics…[Read more]

@craig607 great to see the stepper functionality and managing it with the GCODEs though I wasn’t clear what the Marlin board is, and how it gets activated. Is the relay the power switch ON, or a pull to ground input.
This probably says how basic my view is, looking at powering, the 4.2V is nice as it maps to a LiPo battery, though LiPo are 4.2V…[Read more]

@craig607 fascinating, thankyou for the brainstorm.
Looking at the stepper motor power draw, seems like managing where that power draw comes from would be part of the design. For one source of steppers that give a range of V and A, there is a lot of choice https://www.adafruit.com/?q=stepper&sort=BestMatch
Happy to brainstorm that part if its useful.

@lyh2o I wonder, assuming you have this in the office, if you could enable some debugging and post it.
The debugging most useful is
-DMS_ENVIRODIYPUBLISHER_DEBUG
so depending on how you build, but if platformIO it would be on a separate line
build_flags =
-DSDI12_EXTERNAL_PCINT
-DNEOSWSERIAL_EXTERNAL_PCINT…[Read more]

Great – I’ve asked https://www.instrumart.com/ if they plan on stocking it.

Something to note, a bit strange, is it comes up in SDI-12 mode, and needs an initial configuration to switch to RS485.
From getting some initial success – it may be worth starting with SDI-12 and getting some responses. Alternatively talk with a tech rep as to how they…[Read more]

A further note on developing a new interface over Modbus; is to then check that when its running the instrument is actually reporting well over that interface.

I’ve integrated an LT500 Modbus into ModularSensors – and the question now is how well does it perform. Does it actually report and work well. I’ve had this working well on the SDI-12, so…[Read more]