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    The Eagle - Soil Moisture Probe Setup

    Written by Matthew Clark-Massera

    Updated at January 27th, 2023

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      The Eagle is a battery-powered device that provides GPS asset tracking while catering for an impressive array of inputs and outputs and different sensor interfaces. It comes in either 2G or 4G LTE Cat-M1 / NB-IoT versions.

      In this example, we are using the Eagle and an SDI-12 soil moisture probe to monitor the soil moisture by taking a periodic reading every 30 minutes. We upload the readings every 3 hours.

      Wiring:

      Input Voltage: The Eagles uses 4V - 16V with flexible options – from “off the shelf” Alkaline batteries to LiSO2 and 12V options. The internal battery can be used as a backup to operate when external power fails or is not present.

      Red: Batt +

      Black: Batt –

      SDI-12: This interface is commonly used for agricultural sensors and measurement devices for soil moisture probes, temperature, electrical conductivity (EC) of soils and water levels / pressures.

      Green: GND

      Brown: VOUT

      Blue: SDI-12

      To set this up on OEM, the following settings can be applied:

      1. Advanced tracking:
        Tracking Mode set to Periodic Tracking Only. This disables movement tracking.
        GPS Fix Multiplier set to 8 – this means that the device will only get a GPS fix every 8th Heartbeat. Since the heartbeat will be set to 3 hours, this is a GPS fix every 24 hours.
      2. Basic Tracking:
        Heartbeat set to 180 minutes (3 hours) – the data will be uploaded every 3 hours
      3. SDI-12 General
        Power Up Delay set to 1 second – this means that the device will power the SDI-12 for 1 second before it takes a reading. Some probes may require a longer power up delay. In the case of very long probes, up to 6 seconds may be required.
      4. SDI-12 Measurement 1
        The address is by default set to 0
        Measurement Mask set to 0x03 – this means for address 0, it will take 2 readings (type 0 and type 1). This is the most common setup for soil moisture probes.
      5. Task 1
        Period Unit set to Minutes
        Out of Trip Period set to 30 – the SDI-12 will take a reading every 30 minutes
        Item 1 Type set to SDI-12 Sample
        To setup a Rain Gauge to measure the precipitation in an area, the following additional setting is required:
      6. Digital Input 1
        Set Function to Rain Gauge
        Digital Input set to Input 1 (as wired)
        Bias Resistor set to Pull-up
        Active Level set to low – this means that the Digital Input is “on” when the loop is closed, effectively pulling the input to ground
        Log on Active set to Yes – the device will log a record when this digital input is “on”
        Long on Inactive set to No – this effectively logs each tip. If you are using a see-saw rain gauge, set this to Yes.

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