Sara Damiano

If it’s not going back to 2000, your battery is ok.

Is the board still running the “now” or “adjust” sketch?  If so, every time the board re-starts, it will reset to whatever time you told it in that program.

Do you have a coin battery in the slot?  Could that battery be dead?  If you don’t have a battery in the coin slot or if it’s dead, then the clock will reset to Jan 1, 2000 every time the board is unplugged from the computer or battery

The Arduino print function defaults to two decimal places for a float.  Normally, if you were using Serial.print(float) you could control the decimal places with Serial.print(float, decimalPlaces).  But because of the way the MS_DBG macro is written, that won’t work.  You’ll have to create a String from the number and then MS_DBG that:  MS_DBG(Stri…[Read more]

I was reading up on the BLE support on the XBee3.  I think the only way to send data over Bluetooth is with Digi API frames.  You can use the on-board micropython, but from what I can tell, that uses the API frames under the hood.  So apart from having to figure out how to use the Mayfly to switch the XBee3 into API mode and properly ch…[Read more]

That’s great!  I’m sorry, I was imagining you had the entire set-up, Mayfly and all, running on batteries and sealed under water

You should be using the same modbus address that you use when connected to the computer.

Looking at the datasheet again, I told you the wrong connections.  I’m sorry.  Only Y/Z are available in half-duplex mode, not A/B.  So you need to move A->Y and B->Z.  Turn off the Y/Z termination dip switch (I think).  I also told you the wrong pins for…[Read more]

You’re not “overwriting” the serial connection.  The USB connection on the SAMD21 is a bit touchy and will fail if anything in the program fails.  In you’re program in lines 117 and 119 you’re calling Serial.println(...) and asking it to print the results of a function that returns void.  That’s most likely causing the crash.  It probably wou…[Read more]

Did the extra power smoothing work for you?  I’ve noticed the issues with the WiFi XBee’s, but I wasn’t having them drop that frequently and we don’t have any “production” loggers deployed with WiFi, so I never bothered to try and fix anything.

I’m sorry, I’ve never tried anything with Bluetooth, so I’m only guessing here.

If the Bluetooth chip is that simple, and you have it connected to TXD and RXD on your Mayfly, you should print to the bluetooth using just Serial.print and not do anything with SoftwareSerial.  Serial is the TXD and RXD on the Mayfly.  You could also connect it to T…[Read more]

Oh, bother, and I missed that the chip on the RS485 shield does not have automatic flow control and the DE and REnot aren’t even on the same pin.   The library has support for a single DE/REnot pin, but for two separate pins.  You’ll need to physically join those pins for the library to work.  Run a jumper wire between A4 and A5 and then use ei…[Read more]

Ok, I’m looking at the Arduino website now.

So it looks like the MKR is a SAMD21 based board, not an AVR based board like the UNO.  So, then, yes, just including AltSoftSerial will cause the code to fail to compile because AltSoftSerial is AVR only.

Based on the schematics, the MKR RS485 shield connects the Tx and Rx of the RS485 to Serial1 of…[Read more]

@madbird – I’m sorry, I’m not at all familiar with the MKR or any of its shields.  For anything to work, you need to know what kind of serial port you need and how the pins are connected.  Merely creating and not using an AltSoftSerial instance shouldn’t be a problem at all.  But, of course, nothing’s going to work if you don’t tell the code th…[Read more]

I wish there was some magical way to know why the connection isn’t working or to bribe the thing into working.  Obviously from this forum, and from dozens of issues in the TinyGSM library, a lot of people have trouble figuring out the right settings to get their board to connect.

And a new program to try to set it up in bypass to see if we can see what’s failing that way.  I’ve also posted this on GitHub here: https://github.com/EnviroDIY/ModularSensors/blob/master/tools/LTExBee_FirstConnectionBypass/LTExBee_FirstConnectionBypass.ino

#define TINY_GSM_MODEM_SARAR4
#define TINY_GSM_RX_BUFFER 64
#define TINY_GSM_YIELD_MS…

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Ugh; I thought it would work.  🙁

Two things to try.  First, try running the same thing but change your serial monitor settings to show you more of the output.  If you’re running the Arduino IDE, when you open the serial port monitor, use the drop-down at the bottom to select “Carriage return.”  (See screenshot.)  In PlatformIO, add this to the…[Read more]

The settings for the profile and the band mask should be saved on the module, so you should only need to set it up one time. But, if you’re using ModularSensors, you’ll see that a bunch of the set-up from the first-run sketch is copied in the set-up for the modem in the example sketches. So when using those examples, you’ll either need to delete…[Read more]

To use those commands exactly, you need to switch to bypass mode.

But, the proper equivalent of almost all of those commands area already being used anyway, so you don’t need to change much at all.

They are setting the profile to 1 just like I suggested (that’s the UMNOPROF).  Other than making that change, I think the only thing you need to…[Read more]

No, I don’t think those command suggestions from your IoT provider will help much.

The CPIN command checks if your SIM is locked by a pin number.  If your SIM provider didn’t mention it and give you the pin number, you shouldn’t need it.

The proper equivalent to theCREG command is already being used in the gsmModem.isNetworkConnected() command…[Read more]

1. If the SIM provider says you don’t have to do anything to activate the SIM, I’d trust them.
2. Yes, the “AS” command in the first run sketch does that. (line ~147)
3. If you’re using an XBee3 LTE-M it *only* supports LTE-M and LTE NB-IoT.  Since your provider doesn’t use NB-IoT, LTE-M will be the only possibility.  That first-run program you’re u…

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