General Sensor FAQ:
| Question | Answer |
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Why is the System LED rapidly blinking on my sensor? |
While a sensor is not joined to a network it will continuously blink the System LED to indicate its unconnected status to the user. Ensure your LoRaWAN gateway is connected to your Network Server and verify the DevEUI, AppEUI and AppKey for the device. |
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Why does my LoRa LED blink periodically? |
The LoRa LED indicates LoRa traffic being sent or received by the device. A short blink indicates the sensor has just transmitted, while a longer blink indicates the sensor has received a message. |
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How do I add my sensor to a Network Server? |
Provisioning a sensor on a Network Server will vary based on your Network Server provider. An example of how to perform this on the TEKTELIC Network Server is available in your sensors user manual. Most network server providers will require you to enter the DevEUI, AppEUI and AppKey of your device on their service. |
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What version of LoRaWAN do the sensors implement? |
All TEKTELIC Sensor products will run LoRaWAN 1.0.4. Only Orca Gen1 will continue to use LoRaWAN 1.0.2. |
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The serial numbers on my case are different from the serial numbers on the circuit board. Did my order get mixed up? |
All TEKTELIC products have multiple serial numbers so we can track the devices at each stage of production. It is normal that you sensor board and sensor assembly have different numbers. |
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What can I find the commissioning values for my sensors? (DEVEUI, APPEUI and APPKEY) |
We keep the commissioning values for each sensor secure on our own server. We send the commissioning values for each sensor sent with a shipment but if this was misplaced please send the serial number the revision and the Tcode of the sensor and we can get the information for you. |
| Why is my sensor sending more packets than the Network Server receives? | This occurs when the channel plan does not reflect the number of channels accepted by the gateway. By default, all sensors come up in 64 channel mode which results in lost packets if a gateway with less than 64 channels is used. If you have an 8 channel gateway for example, ensure this is configured in the device settings in the Network Server. In the TEKTELIC NS under the "advanced network settings" tab change the configuration of the "default channel mask" to reflect the number of channels used by the gateway used. |
Input FAQ:
| Question | Answer |
| What is GWC and how is it different than VWC? |
Gravitational Water Content (GWC) is the mass of water per mass of dry soil. Just like Volumetric Water Content (VWC), it is another way of determining how wet your soil is. There are no technical differences between GWC and VWC, as they both calculate the same result (ie. "The soil is wet by X amount"). The only difference between GWC and VWC is how the result is presented. GWC presents the mass of water in terms of grams (g) and VWC presents a percentage (%) of how wet your soil is. |
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How do I interpret GWC? |
As GWC represents only the mass of water per mass of dry soil, it is not possible to interpret the measurement as a percentage. Therefore, you can assume that any value between "Dry" and "Wet" has a degree of water content in it. Values exceeding the "Wet" threshold can be interpreted as more "wet." |
| How do I convert GWC to VWC? |
See the following formula: |
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Important note for customers using fertilizers/additives: |
When converting from GWC to VWC, you might find the results to be inaccurate. This inaccuracy may come from any additional fertilizers/additives applied to the soil. As the Agriculture Sensor was only tested with regular water/soil, it may not be able to accurately match the VWC conversion. |
| How do I convert the readings for soil moisture into GWC? |
Input 1 readings are a frequency presented in kHz. Please refer to the table below for a conversion from this frequency to GWC (gravimetric water content):
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How do I convert the readings for soil temperature into °C? |
The readings from register 0x 02 02 (Input 2) are a voltage, in mV. The premise is, when the voltage reading goes up, the soil temperature is dropping. The formula used to perform the conversion is: soiltemp = -32.46*LN(V)+236.36. |
| How do I convert the readings from the Thermistor and Watermark into Soil Water Tension? |
Watermark 1 & 2 will provide frequency readings. A reading of soil temperature from the thermistor will also be taken into account when calculating the final kPa value of soil water tension, for increased accuracy. Final kPa of soil water tension is calculated by the following steps: 1. Obtain a reading of the frequency from Watermarks 1 or 2 or both. These are registers 0x 05 04 and 0x 06 04 respectively. Table 2-4 below can be used for conversion of the frequencies read from the Watermarks to get an initial kPa value. From Table 2-4, use the column on the right to find the appropriate range that the reading from the Watermarks fits into. Then use the formula directly to the left (from the left column) to calculate the kPa of soil water tension.
Temp = -31.96ln(x)+213.25 x = mV reading from input 3 or 4 This calculation represents the soil temperature. 3. Perform this next step only if the soil temperature varies from 24°C. Using the initial kPa value calculated in step #1, and the soil temperature calculated in step #2, calculate a ‘temperature adjusted’ kPa of soil water tension by using this formula:
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Note: To obtain decoders that convert the readings from the sensor, please see the following link to our GitHub page where these data-converters can be downloaded.