[Shannon Hicks]

I personally haven’t used any Sandisk Ultras with our loggers, so I can’t say how it performs.  This guy did a really great test last year with a variety of microSD cards and summarized his findings (particularly on idle current) in a really helpful list:  https://neurotechhub.wustl.edu/micro-sd-card-low-power-showdown-part-ii/

 

[Shannon Hicks]

Genuine Sandisk and Kingston cards have served us well, not drawing excessive power when the board is sleeping, and being reliable over many years in field deployments.  What we’ve seen issues with is generic cards from random manufacturers because they either fail and corrupt the data after a short time, or they draw 5 or 10 times more power than other cards.  I think any high-quality brand that’s 32GB or smaller should work fine, but you might want to keep an eye on your battery voltage for the first few days after you switch to a new card to see if your battery voltage levels perform the same.

[Shannon Hicks]

If you’re having trouble getting all the libraries to work happily together, you could try downloading all of the ModularSensors dependency libraries from the release files on github:https://github.com/EnviroDIY/ModularSensors/releases

You can scroll down that page and find the zip file at the bottom of each release summary (under the “Assets” heading”).  So if you try the latest release and have issues, you could back up and try an earlier release.

We haven’t deployed any ClariVue10 sensors lately, it looks like the last time I did, it was using ModularSensors version 0.34.0 and we didn’t have any issues at that time with the code.  We haven’t bought any of those sensors in the past few years to test the code with them, so it’s possible there have been changes to the sensor design or firmware that would require some updates to our Arduino library.

[Shannon Hicks]

Are the 3 solder jumpers on the back of your 6-pin screw terminal board soldered properly?  We noticed a few of them came from the factory with no solder on them, so I soldered them in the “Default” position before shipping them out, but there’s a chance yours might have been missed.  You can also try closing solder jumper SJ25 on the back of the Mayfly board to change the 12v boost converter to 9v output instead.  We found a few ClariVue sensors that apparently needed a little more power during the initial startup than the 12v boost converter can provide, and by setting it down to 9v that’ll send a little more current to the sensor and seems to give us better reliability.

[Shannon Hicks]

The b_address_change sketch you attached looks like an older version, it doesn’t match the latest example you can find on our Github: https://github.com/EnviroDIY/Arduino-SDI-12

So make sure you’re using the latest Arduino-SDI-12 library files (download that directory from Github and replace whatever is currently in that folder on your PC.  And also make sure you’re using the latest ModularSensors libraries.  If you’re using older Hydros21 files, there was a timing issue with the newer sensors that caused them not to work with the older code.  And remember you can only set the SDI-12 channel for one sensor at a time, so make sure the other sensor is disconnected from the Mayfly when you’re attempting to read or change the SDI-12 channel of any sensor.

Also, we usually use digital pin D7 in our sketches as the data line for SDI-12 sensors.  When you use the 6-pin multipurpose screw terminal as shown in your photo, the data line of the ClariVue turbidity sensor (white) should be connected to the S2 terminal so that it connects to the D7 pin on the Mayfly board (if you use on of the Mayfly’s two Grove jacks labeled SDI12).  The S1 terminal of the screw terminal board will connect to the D4 pin of the Mayfly.  Or you can change the pin selection solder jumper on the back of the screw terminal board from Default to S1+S2=D2 (there’s photos on the screw terminal shop page showing the different positions).  And you must be sure to put the voltage selection jumper next to the Grove jack with the turbidity sensor to the 12v position.  The Hydros21 sensor usually works fine at 3v, but sometimes we’ve found that they are more reliable at 5v or 12v, depending on what other sensors are connected to the SDI12 bus.

 

 

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[Shannon Hicks]

This thread is for general technical questions about the Mayfly v1.1 board.  I don’t know what video you’re referring to, but I assume you’re using an example sketch from our Github repo or that was included with the ModularSensors library that you downloaded.  Any example sketch we provide should have a section near the top that says what hardware the sketch is compatible with.  Anything written in the past 6 years will be compatible with a Mayfly v1.0 or v1.1 board.  If you’re getting an error during compiling, it could be a syntax error or library error.  If you already have an existing thread for that issue, please post details in that thread about the specific error message you’re getting and what sketch you’re using.

[Shannon Hicks]

The Sodaq_DS3231 library should work with the current Mayfly boards.  Here’s an example from a few years ago that does basic microSD card logging of the onboard sensors and doesn’t rely on ModularSensors:  https://github.com/EnviroDIY/EnviroDIY_Mayfly_Logger/blob/master/examples/mayfly1_TempHumidLight_simpleLogger/mayfly1_TempHumidLight_simpleLogger.ino

[Shannon Hicks]

It sounds like you don’t have all the correct library files installed in your Arduino/libraries folder.  How many sub-folders do you have in that directory on your computer?  When did you last download the ModularSensors library dependency files?

[Shannon Hicks]

That sounds like there’s probably an error in your code that is causing one or more missing functions calls to give an error when compiling.  Have you tried compiling the example sketch exactly as it’s written on that github page I linked above, with no edits at all?  If you’re successful in compiling that example, then compare your edited sketch to the example line-by-line and see what’s causing the error.

[Shannon Hicks]

Section 6 of the EnviroDIY Monitoring Station Manual has instructions and photos related to building the station you have.  Section 6.3 in particular discusses the Hydros 21 CTD sensor that you’re having trouble with.  I’m attaching a screenshot of that section of the manual.  You can see in the photos how the sensor cable has a 3.5mm stereo headphone plug on the end of it.  EnviroDIY makes and sells the 3.5mm-to-Grove adapter board that lets you connect the sensor to the Mayfly Data Logger’s Grove jacks.  Sometimes those stereo jacks get a little corroded inside if a station has been deployed for many years, especially if there’s excess humidity in the enclosure.  So when there’s intermittent data or no data from a sensor, we recommend unplugging the sensor from the headphone jack, then reconnecting it, making sure it’s fully seated in the jack as shown in the photos.  It’s also good to disconnect and reconnect the Grove cable from the Mayfly board to make sure that connection is good too.  If that doesn’t fix your issue, then the next step is to replace the headphone jack, which is available in our Shop.

If there’s still no data from the sensor after making sure the physical connection is good, then it’s likely the sensor died or has a break in one or more wires somewhere along the cable length.  This usually means the sensor needs to be replaced since it’s difficult to repair the cable, especially if the internal air pressure vent tube has been damaged as well.  To test whether the sensor is really bad, we recommend getting one of the ZSC bluetooth modules from Meter Group (follow the link on the manual webpage), which allows you to see live data directly from the CTD sensor.  If that confirms that the sensor has failed, then you’ll need to order a replacement sensor from Meter Group.  Once you get a new CTD sensor, you will need to use the ZSC module to configure the sensor with the right SDI-12 channel address.  The sensors are shipped from the factory at channel zero, but you need to change it to channel 1 in order for the sensor to work with your Mayfly board.  Since your group maintains multiple monitoring stations, all with CTD sensors, having a ZSC module is a really good tool for troubleshooting and maintaining your stations.

Your station also has been having intermittent transmission issues for the past couple months, indicating that there’s a dead battery issue.  Looking at the time series graph (screenshot attached), you can see that your battery voltage started dropping at the same time the CTD sensor data disappeared.  This is either because the station is staying on longer each measurement cycle in order to retry the connection to the sensor in hopes of getting valid data, or the sensor has failed electrically and is drawing unusually high current during sample periods.  Either way, your battery should be replaced with a new, fully-charged one.  I think your group has spare batteries and chargers, but if not, there’s a full discussion of options and links for purchasing from different vendors on the Battery options for EnviroDIY Mayfly Data Logger page.

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