Bat detector

[Le Gui]

Hi,

I am planning to release a new version of the code in a few days that has some bugs resolved and allows monitoring the battery if the right chip is installed.
This forum will be informed when the hex becomes available, Edwin, Willem and Thierry have been testing in the past weeks.

cheers
Cor

Thanks to Edwin (and your work, Cor ), I was able to confirm that my welds are ok. (He gave me the link for the newest .hex file).
Battery indicator appears correctly in the main screen (and brieffly on the boot screen), i'll try out this new sw version this evening !

Here are my welds :


I didn't cut off pcb traces, but unsoldered the two CMS resistors, protected the two pads we don't need anymore with kapton tape and solder the resistors back in place.
Then I used thin wires to connect them to pins 24 & 25

[CorBee]

Hi,

I have just uploaded the new HEX files and project-sourcecode for TeensyBat1.4beta1.
See https://github.com/CorBer/teensy_bat...ter/version1_4

The changes in the software have been tested in the past month or so by Edwin, Thierry and Willem. Thanks again for spending time (probably hours) testing this out.

One of the major changes in this version is that we by default enable all possible hardware options (GPS, temperature monitor, LIPO battery monitor). Based on a short test
during startup the software knows what is available and will only use those parts. This allows users to add additional hardware later without the need to upload another HEX, and
it makes maintenance of the code also a lot easier. HEX files therefore only come in 3 flavours, one for Teensy36 and two for Teensy41 (with/without PSRAM mounted).

As always, this is a Work In Progress Project. This release is a beta and therefore I am sure bugs are still present in the code and if you find one please submit it to us. That way we can
keep improving both software and hardware. If you have ideas/requests for changes in hard/software please also share those. We cant always implement those immediately but we will
often try.

A short list of the more important changes:
- monitoring of LIPO batterylife based on a MAX17043 chip (on the latest PCB from Edwin) was added
- saving and restoring the configuration from an SD has improved. This allows transfer of configuration between TeensyBat machines and also allows easy restoration of your settings between releases. There are also more settings stored in the configfiles.
- deepsleep functionality had a limitation in V1_3, you could not set a wakeup of the device after 0h, now this is also possible
- the "total powerspectrum" of a recording was improved and will not show recorded "noise". This will give a cleaner view of the ultrasonic signals inside a recording.
This is only shown on the detector when replaying a file that was recorded with a TeensyBat.
- when playing a recording the switching between replay rates and Direct replay was not always reliable, now works as planned
- Autorecording was not restoring all default settings after it was stopped by the user, this has been improved
- in autoRecording the PRE-Buffer was deactivated in V1_31 it seems, this is restored
- the GPS menu also shows coordinates in HH MM SS


Although bats are slowly going to become less active (overhere in the N-hemisphere) I hope everybody has fun using the TeensyBat detectors.

Also on behalf of Edwin,

Greetings,

Cor

[pe1pwf]

So I ran out of PCB's, well, I have 3 left at the moment but I ordered some new ones.

It turns out that some of the chips I used are not available, the SGTL5000 was changed to a qfn20 variant, and also the max17043 was not available so I used a max17048 instead. It is a bit smaller and wired a bit differently but the output is the same so it works with the software we have.

Another important change is the space I reserved for an extra microphone amplifier. The opamp is not in place yet but all other parts are and they are wired to line-in right, the mic in is also wired to line-in left.
For the guys that want to try stereo I guess this could be a good platform.

Not having the extra amplification of the microphone-input might reduce a bit of the flexibility but stereo could be fun.

I/we did not yet work on stereo software, and it could very well be that the hardware has its limitations for working in stereo but I just wanted you to know the PCB is prepared for some experiments which will work much better than breadboards and dupont wires.

Kind regards,

Edwin

[CorBee]

Hi all,

The github repository of TeensyBat is temporarily unavailable, I will notify when we are "back".

cheers
Cor

[CorBee]

Hi,

The github repository for teensybat code and hexfiles is publicly available again. This is an ALPHA release but since it is mainly based on the 1.4 release I am not expecting large issues.
See https://github.com/CorBer/teensy_bat...eases/tag/v1.5

In previous releases we have used the acronym "TE" for one of the modes of the detector. A producer of commercial detectors has objected to us using that acronym as they have a patent on a live TE technique. Although We Are not using their technique We Are now renaming this mode to Granular Stretch(GS). This also reflects the mode and library we have been using since 2018 based on the standard granular-effect of the Teensy Audio library. (see https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/53036...anular+effect).

Previous versions are currently not available but can be re-created when there is demand(please send a PM) for a previous version. Re-creating all previous versions and replacing all the acronyms inside the code would cost us a lot of time.

cheers
Cor

[CorBee]

Hi,

As spring is approaching I will be updating the current software shortly. If you have any bugs/issues or requests for enhancements please share them either in this
forum or via a PM.

cheers
Cor

[CorBee]

Hi,

First new part of the upcoming version. Direct readout of the microSD card using MTP (thanks for the people on this forum developing this !!)


cheers
Cor

[CorBee]

Hi all,

The next version is currently under development but in the final testing stages. A few important changes:

MediaTransferProtocol added: The detector now can be connected to a PC/Laptop and will show up as an MTP-device. this will allow copying of files from the detector to a PC without removing the SD-card
Screen on during recording: the screen can now be left active (default is OFF) both during manual and automatic recording sessions.
Deepsleep improvements: Deepsleep now will behave properly based in the start-end times of the recording period. Too keep battery-usage minimal the T41 version will switch to a lower clockspeed in the deepsleep mode (both during sleep and recording). Additional status-screen information is now avaiable when the screen is off during deepsleep, long-pressing a button will provide feedback of the status.
GPS improvements: The GPS module (if mounted) demands quite a bit of current during usage, in the new version you can switch the GPS on/off to get a position and still preserve battery
Battery-indicator: if a lipo battery-indicator is mounted this will provide better feedback of the battery-status.

cheers
Cor

[maxmapper]

Hello Cor,

I have a question for you. I am a volunteer wildlife researcher in Los Angeles. I am working on a design for a solar powered wildlife observation device that can stream wildlife observations from a listening post over a WiFi bridge (Ubiquiti). The goal is to have 1 video stream and 2 microphone streams (one for birds and one for bats). My thought at the moment is to use a IP webcam with stereo mic input for the bird mic, so I won't need any custom hardware. For the bat mic I am hoping to use a Teensy 4.1 with ethernet to send the data over the network. I stumbled across your project today and it seems like a great fit! My goal is to have the hardware be hands-off so I don't have to go and reconfigure the device in the field, ideally it would just turn on and stream 24/7 as long as there is sufficient power. I don't need it to record to an SD card. I was wondering if you have considered use cases like this before and if you had any thoughts on how I should proceed. I would like to get an initial prototype going. I've worked with the Teensy Audio board about 7 years ago but am quite rusty. Thanks, Max

[CorBee]

Hi Max

We have not worked on this thusfar, this is a rather specific usecase I think. Question is, what do you want to send over ethernet ? Audible sound or raw ultrasonic sound. Audible sound (from the teensybat) can be easily used for instance using bluetooth. You can add a bluetooth transmitter on the output.
Alternatively you could feed audible sound the same way as you do with the normal sound via a channel on the camera (left for birds, right for bats) ?

You will need to study and set your goals in this.

cheers
Cor

[Bas]

Hi Max

(...)this is a rather specific usecase I think (...)

cheers
Cor

Dear all, this use case sounds similar to our ideal monitoring setup in a church. The ideal would be to have a number (between 6 and 12) of Teensybats that could be remotely accessed through ethernet UTP/Wifi, i.e., download the sound recordings and tune settings.

Bas

[CorBee]

Hi Bas,

The main - unanswered question - of the original post is that its not clear what should be recorded. Directly transmitting RAW ultrasonic data isnt a simple thing, even at 192K sampling speed (which isnt really high) the datastream is large. In your use-case you want to record on the teensybat and access the recordings on the SDcard. That is probably also possible (since we now have an MTP option) as you dont need a real datastream. The original post does NOT want to use recordings stored on an SDcard. So the two cases are "related" in the fact that they want to access the data either directly (original poster) or at intervals (your usecase) over an external connection. As we are finishing the work on version 1.6 this will not be part of the current codebase. But the code will be open-source so anybody that wants to can experiment with this, and I hope they then also share so well can benefit.

cheers
Cor

[Bas]

Hi Cor,
Yes you're right, for me downloadable audio fragments would work. Max is aiming at a stream. That's not the same.
Bas

[CorBee]

The code is open for people to explore this kind of option, anybody that tries and has questions can always share them via a PM with me. I am willing to help out.

cheers
Cor

[CorBee]

Hi,

Version 1.6 of the Teensy Batdetector software is available since yesterday from:
https://github.com/CorBer/teensy_bat...eases/tag/v1.6

Next to Edwin who was again my main counterpart I also want to thank Adrian, David, Pavel, Thierry and Willem for their help in the past weeks during testing/development.

cheers
Cor