Help save the Vultures with a 10DOF

Very nice project!
The subject talks about 10DOF. What are the variables that you need to sense? (DOF means degree of freedom, right?)
In the subject of batteries there are big ass button cell batteries too, I believe that it can be a option too. But at the end, the best choice, I think that may be LiPo.
Why to you use "pre-made" boards, and not design you own board? It can have whatever you need, and can be of the size (or shape) you want. The other important point about this question is it can have ONLY what you need (and nothing more consuming your precious power).
Doing some math: if you have one battery with 1000mAh and you need it to work 70 days, the system need to consume at max 1000mAh/(70*24h) = 595uA. This must include the bursts of RF, save data in the flash/SD card etc. I think it can be done, but maybe not with any microcontroller/system.
The last question (that may be the key question) is about rate. At what rate you want to read data?

Thanks for the interest in the project. The data rate needs to be high enough that it's useful and we can see what is going on but I do see that power is going to be the killer here. The other thing that is being over looked is the surface temperature data. The data needed is to show what happens to the egg and how it is rotated by the parents but also the effect to the temperature gradient applied to the egg of the incubation by the birds sitting or not sitting on the on egg. This is where I was looking at using the DS18b20s in the shell. Using a 3d printed case that has the holes of the DS18b20s already in it.

One thing that I hadn't thought about is the heating of the egg by the processor etc. I have been running the stack for 24hrs and there doesn't seem to be much heat from it bit I should really put it in a box and see what happens then. It needs not to get warm as the birds will stop sitting on it if they feel the egg is too hot.

So everything that the 10DOF can show plus the temp gradient. I.e Rotation, movement, acceleration, heading, temp etc.

One thing that I've noticed in your last picture, that helps me in my point of view, is that you have 4 LED's in your PCB stack! What they are doing if the stack will be inside one egg and no one can see it?! If they are "eating" 0,5mA each the 4 will "eat" 2mA. That is in my last math ONLY the led's will discharge the 1000mAh battery in only 500h (21 days). I suggest (at least) removing those led's or his series resistors from the pcb's.

These are off the shelf and as they came... I really like them but I do agree that the LEDs will be a problem ultimately if we are to not use any unnecessary power but to start with and get things going the LEDs might be quite useful for debugging etc. Does anyone know if any of the micro SD cards are more power efficient than others? I can see this being another problem area

A rough estimate might be: 25MBITS SPI = 20MBITS data rate
for 700kbps, your duty cycle will be 0.7/20
0.7/20 * 20mA = 0.7mA average current
0.7mA * 3.3V = 2.3mW.

I have seen others quoted at 30, 60 and 80mA as well

Flash mode Max Power up
Current (uA)
Max Stand by
Current (uA)
Max Read
Current (mA)
Max Write
Current (mA)
Single(1)
flash(1x8bit)
150 150 60@ 3.6V 60@ 3.6V
Parallel(2)
flash(2x8bit)
200 200 80@ 3.6V 80@ 3.6V

(1) Data transfer mode is single channel.
(2) Data transfer mode is dual channel.

does anyone have any real world data on this?

I worked in one project, only in the beginning of it, and we used, at the time, not an SD card, but a flash IC. And when I look for information about this type of IC it was very different values in the consumption. So, I believe that for SD cards it self it can have different values of consumption too (inside one SD card there are flash IC's).

Maybe I need to get a few Micro SD cards and do some bench marking....

Does and one know which of the online 3D printing services is any good? Anyone ever used any of them and does anyone have any experience of clip together cases? I want to make a case that has single part that when two are printed they will fit together to form the egg case and click together so that no screw are needed. The case needs to have holes in it so that it can have an array of DS18B20s arranged across the surface such a way that the temperature gradient of the surface can be read.

It might be best to have the holes made so that the DS18B20s sit in a pocket with just the legs going through the case so that they can be bonded in and the level of water proofing might be improved...

If not as FOD (foreigh object debris), won't the hen turn out the dummy egg as a dud?
All birds do that - they "know".
"Hey, wait a minute! What the heck is this?"
I thought then, well what's to turn the process in the Towers of Silence?

Just curious.

The instinct to sit the egg is very strong in most of the birds that they will sit an egg of similar size and colour. There is always one bird that will decide that it doesn’t like the new egg and kick it out of the nest but luckily that’s the minority and not the majority. We remove the eggs for incubation and then put the chicks back in after 7 to 10days after hatching to make sure that we can give them as much of a head start as we can. We did have several moments with the Griffon Vultures this year where when the chick was due to hatch they would listen to the dummy egg to see if they could hear anything. As the date passed that the egg was due to have hatch they would both listen to the egg and the look at each other as if to say I can’t hear anything can you? This is probably the most risky part where they might just give up incubating the egg due to it being over due.

Not sure what you are asking about the Parsis?

adambloch:
Not sure what you are asking about the Parsis?

Wasn't asking a question there. I am aware of the "towers" and the vultures' considerable role.
It's a problem for them.

Interesting project,

Would the egg need to maintain a certain temperature in order for the HEN to know how to incubate it? would that temp need to change over time? Assumedly as the chick grows the general temp inside the egg goes up ?

I know this sounds stupid, but, can vultures hear high frequencies? do they get spooked by RF? has it been tested? I for example get frequently P****sed off at poorly made electronics that I can hear buzzing when few other people can hear it.

I think that if you made your own board you could stand a chance of getting some good LIPO's in with it in the bigger egg.
You could either put a lot of smaller cells in parallel and try to squeeze them in every little nook and cranny, or go with one bigger,

you might even be able to squeeze two of these in :

Just be aware that an overly discharged lipo can swell, causing 1) a possibly cracked egg. and even worse 2) they can cause fire, which might end up killing the parent vultures.

sorry, one other thing,

Think about filling the whole egg with some non toxic resin, imagine an angry Vulture pecking the egg and finding a LIPO inside,
they could in theory either get zapped or start a fire, which from a charged LIPO is much more fun that a flat one ,

The bird should provide the temperature or heat to the egg. As long as the egg does not increase the temperature the birds should treat it as if where one of their own. No the noise thing is a sensible question. The answer is I'm not sure, if the noise is from or in the enviroment I would sugeest that they would, if it was a new noise start to ignore it quite quickly. If the noise wa to comes from the egg there might be a risk of rejection with by the bird removing the egg from the nest or the birds leaving the nest.

When we added cameras to the nest site it took a week or so for the birds to stop staring at the camera. Vultures don't like change... :slight_smile:

Making sure that there is no risk to the vultures is critical. We have not had a problem with any of the birds damaging the dummy eggs but they do damage the real eggs by accident normally by standing in them. There are also birds that will destroy their own eggs. Fire, poisoning, death are all things that I would like to avoid.
Many be rather than potting the device, because of the depth of the DS18b20s the case will be thick enough to protect the contents.

well, concerning the noise I guess it will be a suck it and see scenario.

Concerning the Lipo, in my opinion, based on the fact that you need it to transmit for a loooong time, I imagine that you can sacrifice the LIPO in order to get a few more days of transmition, I assume the price of a dead LIPO isnt significant when compared to getting more data,

That in mind, a LIPO normally goes down to 3.2v, you should do some testing with the ones you decide to use, but if you take it down to 2.5v I dont think it will set on fire, maybe a small swell. BUT at that point you should be able to decide if you want just a little more transitting power, or to stop and shut off, you will need a voltage measuring circuit on the arduino, and the ability to shut it all off if the battery goes critical,

now I think about it ,

if you can get a couple fo these badboys in there, even just one, you should have plenty of power. They can go down to lower voltages, but IF they get over discharged, they can literally go off like rockets, so it needs to be considered.

I really don't want to have anything catching fire... We have and others have been using LiPos in a few things for a while and so far no problems... The BM that is in the stack I hope will monitor and solve the problem anyway.

Microduino-BM is a discharge module which combines a single-cell Li-ion battery charge management, power detection and LED indication. The output voltage is 5V, and LDO is 3.3V output. Provides the outstanding battery management for the Microduino-Core module.

If the voltage drops below 3.2V, LED1 flashes and within 5 seconds the HT4901 goes to standby mode to avoid over-discharging the battery.

Great news Microduino have agreed to help with this project... We are currently building a website to host this project and let everyone join in. I'll put the link up as soon as the site is ready but in the mean time I'll continue on here.

Hi all.... Just to keep you all up to date.. we have nearly finished the website and there is a small forum to start talking about how this project is going and what is being done. It's all live and it would be great to have loads more input from everyone. Please come and register and join in.

I have also been in contact with the guys at https://www.3dprint-uk.co.uk/ they have very kindly sent me some sample bits to try out on the vultures to see if they can with stand being bitten. 3d printing does seem so far to be very strong. I'll post the results of the bite test on the forum.

For those of you wanting to find the new site you'll find it here

http://www.eggduino.org

Again many thanks for the offers of help and please come and give your input on the new site.

I will continue to add up dates here as well

Adam

Please say Bill Bailey is involved and that isnt just a random picture

No not just a random picture of Bill Baley. It was taken during filming at the centre for one of his DVDs. After he had finished filming for the video he spent a lot of the afternoon playing with the baby Condor.

He also very kindly opened our new Raptor Hospital this year and had fun doing Owl selfies

Hi all

I just thought I would update you on some of the testing I have been doing. As I mention the guys at http://www.3dprint-uk.co.uk/ had very kindly sent me some samples to see if the vultures could bite through them. One of the areas that has worried me a little has bee the risk of a bird getting through the case and biting a LiPo. Anyway what I'mlearning is that vultures won't bite white plastic objects (and why should they).. from the few bites she did do the plastic did very well.

brilliant, the comedy troll with an owl. who would have thought it