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Hydromoth not recording

Hello!

I am currently working with hydromoths that are not recording. When we configure the hydromoths (the same way we have for the past 6 months) we receive a blinking red and green light instead of the blinking red light. The app has been giving me notifications to update to the latest version (which I did by uninstalling and reinstalling the audio configuration app). We have also updated the firmware on the hydromoths to the latest version, reformatted our SD cards, tried several different SD cards, and tried this whole process on 2 different laptops. Please let me know if you have any ideas on how to fix this so we can record!

5 comments

5 Comments

Alex Rogers

Jun 15

If both LED are flashing at exactly the same time when you switch to DEFAULT this is an SD card write problem.

The problem could be due to an SD card problem. What make and model of SD card are you using?

It could also be due to discharged batteries. What make and model of battery are you using?

Can you confirm the configuration that you are setting - screenshot of Config App.

Can you give a bit more context. Is this multiple HydroMoth behaving the same way - how many out of the larger set are affected? Were they stored for a long time prior to this attempt? Is there any obvious sign of corrosion?

Alex Rogers

Jun 15

Replying to

We'd normally recommend Sandisk Extreme (red and gold) cards as they tend to use less energy, are quieter than SanDisk Ultra cards and will support faster sampling rates (SanDisk Ultra probably aren't fast enough for 384kHz recording). In this case, 64GB cards would probably be big enough, as you'll be more limited by the battery capacity - 3500 / 2300 = 15 days of recording. What sample rate and sleep/record cycle are you using? Not getting any LED at all when you switch to DEFAULT with the SD card fitted suggests a bad connection in the SD card holder caused by the actual SD card - hence it flashes the LED correctly when there is no SD card present and not when it is present.

Does it manage to write anything to the SD card? It should write the CONFIG.TXT file to the SD card before it tries to make a recording.

jessica_17z

Jun 15

Replying to

Hi Alex,

Our sample rate is 16 kHz and our recording period is 00:00-24:00.

It does not manage to write anything to the SD card.

Alex Rogers

Jun 15

Replying to

I guess you are using 5 second recordings and 60 second sleep cycles? If you use 5 second recordings and 55 seconds sleep cycles, each recording will start at the start of the minute and you will have 1440 recordings per day. That might make the file start times more uniform. I think the SD card socket has been damaged on this one. Could there be some debris inside the socket that is shorting out connections when the SD card is present? Or possibly some corrosion inside the SD card socket? The fact that there are no LED being shown when it tries to write to the SD card in DEFAULT suggests there is some problem that arises when it tries to power-up the SD card which is causing the AudioMoth to reset. When you switch to CUSTOM I assume that you only see quick flashes of the red and green LED and not long flashes?