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neilh

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    neilh started the topic Powering Ideas in the forum Infrastructure and Equipment 2 months, 2 weeks ago

    I’ve been working on a relatively low cost powering concept for some time, and got the basics working – so I would like to share it.
    It is at the circuit level – so I apologize, its really for anybody tinkering at the circuit level.
    I’ve added it as a PDF – so hope that works.

    My objective is to be able to use the low cost of LiIon battery packs…[Read more]

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    neilh replied to the topic Modify SW5V boost to 12V in the forum Mayfly Data Logger 2 months, 2 weeks ago

    Hello @aufdenkampe,
    Great to hear you are doing a power shield with capability to deliver to the EnviroDIY water quality data portal.
    There hasn’t been a hw solution yet that I liked, that so I haven’t done anything with the Arduino libs. Maybe that will change.:)
    I’m planning on doing a poster at…[Read more]

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    neilh replied to the topic Deployment options in the forum Infrastructure and Equipment 4 months ago

    Hi @bumpersp
    Great question.
    Installation is what the systems needed to be built for, as it brings it all together.

    I’ve been building and testing equipment for deployment in small to mediums sized streams in N California, and occasionally been out with the Hydrologists that will later on be doing the stream rating curves.
    My part has been to…[Read more]

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    neilh replied to the topic Modify SW5V boost to 12V in the forum Mayfly Data Logger 4 months, 2 weeks ago

    Hello @aufdenkampe
    I was just wondering, for the Modbus/Keller Acculevel, for field deployment what you are doing for powering/mechanical and pushing to your intranet. Perhaps this is a topic by itself, be interested to discuss as I’m developing some circuits for same 🙂

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    neilh replied to the topic Modify SW5V boost to 12V in the forum Mayfly Data Logger 4 months, 2 weeks ago

    Hi Anthony, great to see the SensorModbusMaster detail.

    FYI for the Keller Acculevel I found they had the CRC16 bytes switched around. Its well documented in the manual “Keller CRC16.

    Also, if you are looking for accurate measurement at low levels of stream depth with low temperature dependency I’ve found the Keller Nanolevel to be about…[Read more]

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    neilh replied to the topic Modify SW5V boost to 12V in the forum Mayfly Data Logger 5 months, 1 week ago

    Hi Sara.
    Nice to hear someone else using Modbus/RS485. Thanks for sharing the library.
    The realtime serial processing is a challange and I have got it working on different systems. The first sign to look for is whether its supported in chips UART through DTR.
    One issue with the automatic flow control is that it uses a couple of mA to maintain the…[Read more]

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    neilh posted a new activity comment 5 months, 2 weeks ago

    Got the pic thanks. Looks to be a small footprint board.
    I guess that’s why the EnviroDiy is hosting, so that it can be a discussion for environmental monitoring and a place to cross pollinate, to use an environmental pun.
    BTW like the sound of the local storage you describe – however the EMC1001 I could find is a temperature…[Read more]

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    neilh posted a new activity comment 5 months, 2 weeks ago

    Hey thanks for the details. There doesn’t seem to be any picture attached.
    Just wondering what is the full version of the PIC32MX150 – how much ram and flash.
    I’m guessing a bit, but seems to me for networking with LoRaWaN the issue is how to gateway to a TCP/IP centric world. Of course Rome wasn’t built with one project either …. 🙂

    FYI, my…[Read more]

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    neilh posted a new activity comment 5 months, 2 weeks ago

    I echo Jeremy Hise . To play with wireless (BLE & LoRa) that can be close to or embedded in the top 6″ of soil then temperature, humidity and soil moisture. Of course so many “dust” sensors floundered in real world conditions that micros don’t like in the circuitry like humidity, and 2.4GH that is absorbed by real world vegetation.

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    neilh replied to the topic Modify SW5V boost to 12V in the forum Mayfly Data Logger 5 months, 3 weeks ago

    Thanks for the link – I think I hadn’t figure out the right registers addresses to read, so very useful.
    I’m assuming your include <ModbusMaster.h> pulls https://github.com/4-20ma/ModbusMaster

    The direction I’m heading in is with the BeagleBone Green Wireless and generating Modbus 12V off 5V. Will post more when I have it tested.

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    neilh replied to the topic Modify SW5V boost to 12V in the forum Mayfly Data Logger 6 months ago

    Hi Calvin
    Nice to see the pic of the 3G logger.
    I was wondering if you got the link to the LT400 working.
    I’ve been attempting to access the LT500 but not had any success decoding the LT500 protocol that runs on top of the modbus/RS485.
    I have had packets as per the “Insitu Modbus_Communication_Protocol_5.10.pdf” but seems there is some…[Read more]

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    neilh and Profile picture of DaveDave are now friends 9 months, 2 weeks ago

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    neilh posted a new activity comment 9 months, 2 weeks ago

    For a leafy canopy 2.4Ghz gets absorbed by the water. 900Mhz gives a much range in a leafy canopy for lower power. The WiFi standard is evolving to include a “low data rate” in sub 1GHz – but no time lines for which silicon will have it first.
    I’d be interested in what you find with specific sensors – it can be painful – however calibration and…[Read more]

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    neilh posted a new activity comment 9 months, 3 weeks ago

    Hi Dave
    Great to hear about it – this is a board to bring together the ecosystem sciences and software/electronic to make it happen.
    Be great to hear how you are going about defining and refining the sensor networks.
    I’ve been designing remote instream water sensors. The challenges has been low cost environmental protection, solar powering, field…[Read more]

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      Dave replied 9 months, 2 weeks ago

      Hi there Neil,

      Well right now we’re quite focused on a handful of important characteristics of forest ecosystems, predominantly air T, soil T, plant available moisture, and volumetric soil moisture. The general paradigm shift we see now is that single sensor nodes do not provide the spatial or temporal resolution for us to understand microclimate…[Read more]

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        neilh replied 9 months, 2 weeks ago

        For a leafy canopy 2.4Ghz gets absorbed by the water. 900Mhz gives a much range in a leafy canopy for lower power. The WiFi standard is evolving to include a “low data rate” in sub 1GHz – but no time lines for which silicon will have it first.
        I’d be interested in what you find with specific sensors – it can be painful – however calibration and…[Read more]

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    neilh posted an update 11 months ago

    Beware cellular reseller Kore Wireless Group. The Cellular Industry has not been that friendly to small users. Back in 2009 I though I had got lucky with a small MVNO Wyless providing cellular IoT data connections at a reasonable rate.
    At the time I had some customers monitoring a number of remote rural stream where the only signal around was…[Read more]

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    neilh and Profile picture of Gerhard OGerhard O are now friends 1 year, 1 month ago

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    neilh replied to the topic Monitoring well or piezometer water level sensor in the forum Environmental Sensors 1 year, 2 months ago

    Hi Sedhead, thanks for sharing. I’m just heading out the door for a weekend camping, and so a quick comment.
    I’m not affiliated at all with the EnviroDiy – but I wonder if you’ve looked at the Mayfly. The benefit is that there is just the type of experience on this board for that device and software. I would think the key software you want to…[Read more]

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    neilh replied to the topic Custom Arduino-based sensor, off-the-shelf SDI-12 datalogger in the forum Data Loggers 1 year, 2 months ago

    Wow fantastic to see the https://github.com/EnviroDIY/ModularSensors, and the https://github.com/EnviroDIY/Libraries.

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    neilh posted a new activity comment 1 year, 2 months ago

    Just came across a devices that maybe could make small distance measurements
    Piezoelectric film – the problem might be calibrating it.
    That is it might be able to show a change in trunk diameter based on stress applied to the film, but how easy would it be to translate to metric mm?
    Also it doesn’t contain a temperature dependency…[Read more]

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    neilh commented on the post, Accurate low stream depth measurements viewable on internet 1 year, 3 months ago

    Hi Paul
    Thanks for the comment. Yes that’s the intent – find out how much the stream is varying, which could be the diurnal fluctuation of the stream level, or other temperature dependent measurement errors.

    In this case – the logger uses 4-20mA and a static resistor is used to simulate the sensor – holding the apparent reading relatively…[Read more]

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