Hive monitoring - DIY

[The Drone Ranger]

You're not looking for drones

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You gave me an idea there though
How about a a balloon on a long thin string
Hanging below it a little microphone sending via bluetooth when it hears something
Down on the ground in your pocket a receiver
The receiver decides if the sound matches that of drones
If it does it records your position GPS
It sends a signal to the microphone "keep listening DCA !!"
If not it sends signal to microphone "go back to sleep its geese"

We'll call it the alclosier DCA detection system
In later generations they won't shout "Eureka! " when the find a DCA they'll shout "alclosier..."

[alclosier]

Lol if you're looking for dca's you would have to use a drone rather than a balloon. Mainly cos the drone would be looking for drones....

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[The Drone Ranger]

[QUOTE=alclosier;33914]Lol if you're looking for dca's you would have to use a drone rather than a balloon. Mainly cos the drone would be looking for drones....

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Drone like the Parrot ?
Lol! too dear for me
http://shop.epictv.com/en/drones/beb...mDUaAs9Y8P8HAQ

[fatshark]

How about this spec.?

Temperature and humidity sensing. At intervals of 1s to 24 hours. Up to 21000 data points i.e. >1 year at 30 minute sampling. 2 x AAA batteries. USB connection for downloading data. £23

Available from Amazon

[The Drone Ranger]

Amazing technology for the price fatshark
http://highlowtech.org/?p=1695
Re - ATtiny85
This has been very useful page because its mostly all in one place

[The Drone Ranger]

Hopefully this will give anyone interested the means to make their own box
You will need to have downloaded Fritzing http://fritzing.org/home/
And the Arduino IDE https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/OldSo...eases#previous
V1.6.5 is best as the latest release has some bugs associated with Attiny85 (might be fixed now)

This link give all the files for Fritzing and Arduino plus PDF's of the boards for printing and BOM
https://drive.google.com/folderview?...lk&usp=sharing
Use this page for programming your attiny85 chip
http://highlowtech.org/?p=1695

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[The Drone Ranger]

I've just woken up and realised I haven't a clue what is going on with the hive monitoring
Has anybody started/finished any section of the thing ?

I haven't meant to spend so much time on the varrox timer
It has been a good training ground though
I have fried several regulators and transistors and done for 3 or 4 AtTiny chips and a couple of Digispark ones
China's economy is looking up again after a flurry of replacements and new bits got ordered

[Greengage]

Im curious to know where everybody got with the project,
Have you agreed that temp and humidity of Brood, hive , are important and external temps as well this will indicate if hive needs ventilation, if queen has ceased laying i.e no brood so treatment can be given.
Sound will indicate if swarming is eminent?? (Maybe its just raining)

[fatshark]

I think I posted earlier the approx. stage I'd got to ... I can get the temp and humidity readings I want, can store them to SD card and can get reasonable battery performance. I've got a real time clock working so can relate in-hive events to things I do externally (or that happen in the environment). I've recently received a 'thingy' to allow me to run from a batter/solar panel combination, but still have to buy the panel. Almost all of this is on an Arduino or one of it's smaller, lower voltage relatives. I've not actually trashed anything yet ... perhaps I'm not trying hard enough.

I've bought a barebones Arduino chipset and will build a ultra-low power version if I don't get enough oomph from the solar.

I've yet to get beyond the breadboard stage and will probably try the Mark I version like this. I'm fortunate I have a shed so weather protection isn't an issue. I've still got to work out how to keep the probes in the parts of the hive I want them to be - the wires (of which there are several) are ~4-5mm in diameter. Mark II will probably have to wait until next winter ... I can feel the urge to build stuff with bits of wood growing and want to construct a couple of modified Snelgrove/Morris/Horsley boards to experiment with this season.

Sound is a problem and I've not solved it ... I'm going to cheat. I want sound monitoring for relatively short periods and want to be able to detect changes in frequency. I'm going to try doing this with a microphone/dictaphone setup and post-process. No idea whether it'll work. I'm even wondering whether I can simply use a directional mike under the OMF.

I then got distracted with relays and started building a slave clock driver ...

[The Drone Ranger]

Almost all of this is on an Arduino or one of it's smaller, lower voltage relatives. I've not actually trashed anything yet ... perhaps I'm not trying hard enough.
I then got distracted with relays and started building a slave clock driver ...

The ATtiny85's got binned after I found that the internal clock speeds up if you increase its supply voltage
I thought that might make a simple way of shortening or lengthening the timing dependant on battery condition

Veroboard is a good intermediate stage fatshark

Were you thinking of fitting the sensors in the crown board or drilling through the broodbox wall
I wonder if the sensor could be fitted in the brood frame and a connection made with a press stud
You see this method in kids electronics kits and it works pretty well