Hey Sol, 

No problem at all. Depending on your configuration, the Audiomoth software would have to work on a PCB with an ESP32 chip which is the unit on the audiomoth/hydromoth, so you would have to make a PCB centered around this chip. You could mimic the functionality of the audiomoth software on another chip, like on a raspberry pi with python's pyaudio library for example. The problem you would have is that the H1A requires phantom power, so it's not plug and play. I'm not too aware with the H1e, but maybe you can control the microphone through the recorder that is programmable through activations by the RPi (not that this is the most efficient MCU for this application, but it is user friendly). A simpler solution might be to just record continuously and play a sound or take notes of when your 10 min deployment starts. I think it should last you >6 hours with a set of lithium energizer batteries. You may want to think about putting a penetrator on the PVC housing for a push button or switch to start when you deploy. They make a few waterproof options. 

Just somethign else that occured to me, but if you're dropping these systems, you'll want to ensure that the system isn't wobbling in the seagrass as that will probably be all you will hear on the recordings, especially if you plan to deploy shallower. For my studies in Curacao, we aim to be 5lbs negative, but this all depends on your current and surface action. You might also want to think about the time of day you're recording biodiversity in general. I may suggest recording the site for a bit (a couple days or a week) prior to your study to see what you should account for (e.g. tide flow/current/anthropogenic disturbance) and determine diel patterning of vocalizations you are aiming to collect if subsampling at 10 minutes. 

Cheers, 

Matt

Hi Sol,

If the maximum depth is 30m, it would be worth experimenting with HydroMoth in this application especially if the deployment time is short. As Matt says, the air-filed case means it is not possible to accurately calibrate the signal strength due to the directionality of the response. For some applications, this doesn't matter. For others, it may.

Another option for longer/deeper deployments would be an Aquarian H2D hydrophone which will plug directly into AudioMoth Dev or AudioMoth 1.2 (with the 3.5mm jack added). You can then use any appropriately sized battery pack.

If you also connect a magnetic switch, as per the GPS board, you can stop and start recording from outside the housing with the standard firmware.

Alex

Yeah we got it about as bare bones as possible for this level of photo resolution and duration in the field. The main costs right now are:

Pi- $80

Pijuice -$75

Battery - $85

64mp Camera - $60

which lands us at $300 already. But we might be able to eliminate that pijuice and have fewer moving parts, and cut 1/4 of our costs! Compared to something like just a single logitech brio camera that sells for $200 and only gets us like 16mp, we are able to make this thing as cheap as we could figure out! :)

Gotcha, well I look forward to seeing future iterations and following along with your progress!! 

Thanks @Freaklabs, I think you'll really enjoy getting involved with this too as we're looking for input from makers in the community to get the most from the approach and to capture features and usability ideas from a large number of people.

I've a new modular drop-off tag build using @Rob_Appleby's original SensorDrop board that I think would be great for this project too to see if we can drop different compartments, or do various different timed events with the one TimeLord board.

Most importantly, we have to make it play a MIDI version of the DoctorWho theme song when you arm the device. That has to be the #1 feature if you ask me!

 

Reminds me that we should look at both terrestrial and marine applications when we get stuck in to the demo builds to make sure we cover use cases 

'Most importantly, we have to make it play a MIDI version of the DoctorWho theme song when you arm the device. That has to be the #1 feature if you ask me!' 

Seconded!