My idea was for a buoy that would take reading periodically and transmit them using a lora module. Well, things didn't work out like I planned. My lora modules were defective and some of the sensors I wanted to use requires 5v, which the Edison doesn't have. So I've modified my idea by using a Arduino 101. and removed the lora sensor. Because of this change, I've added a couple of other sensors.
The buoy now consist of an Arduino 101, serial LCD, SD card, GPS, ulrasonic sensor (for depth), temperature sensor, photo sensor.
One issues I've had to overcome was the ulrasonic sensor outputs 5v Even though the arduino 101 can handle 5v on the inputs I really wanted to keep it to 3.3v, I ended up using a 3.3v zener diode and a 1k resistor to make sure I didnt overload the input.
Another issue I had was the backlight on the lcd would shut off randomly. After some head scratching, I realized that with all the sensors, powering the circuit with the USB wasn't going to cut it. I tested hooking up a battery to the power jack and voila, the backlight stays on.
Now that the circuit stays on, I was able to get some data and store it on the sd card. Here is a sample of the data.
2017/7/26,1:33:21GMT,45.260399,-66.077724,98,22.00,20
2017/7/26,1:33:32GMT,45.260469,-66.077772,98,21.70,20
2017/7/26,1:33:43GMT,45.260558,-66.077821,99,21.90,20
2017/7/26,1:33:54GMT,45.260647,-66.077909,98,21.90,20
2017/7/26,1:34:5GMT,45.260713,-66.077951,99,22.00,20
Future Enhancements:
- proper formatting on the data.
- wake up timer, to conserve power
- add a working lora module.
- add lithium battery
- add a better ultrasonic sensor. even though the one I have is suppose to be waterproof, after researching it, its not supposed to be submerged in water
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