Reply To: Monitoring power consumption

We have the standard Mayfly kit from TU…the sun here  in the winter is apparently never strong enough to charge the battery with the default solar panel and battery. The voltage reading may get

We have the standard Mayfly kit from TU…the sun here  in the winter is apparently never strong enough to charge the battery with the default solar panel and battery. The voltage reading may get to above 4V for a short time (maybe 1 hr per day), but quickly drops and no more data is transmitted. I dont know if the voltage i see is coming from the battery or from the solar. I don’t know if data is getting saved on the sd card.

I checked one station last week and the board was flashingall sorts of green and red lights. The clock is wrong too.

A bigger solar panel is something we could install, and perhaps a bigger battery. In one location we are in an old guaging station so battery size is no issue. In another location we’d need to have it fit in the otterbox or we could setup another small enclosure for the battery.

I was also thinking about using 8 AA’s like in a game camera. Those energizer lithium last forever…but if there is a constant current draw with the Mayfly then they may not be the answer.

Any suggestions for a location (47-48 degrees N) with very little good sun and avg daytime temps 35 in the winter?

Less...