Hello all,
I bought one of the Official Audiomoth IPX7 cases, the black color to be specific, and deployed it for five days to test the audio quality against my current case design. During those five days the weather was fair, ~80F high, ~65F low, and no rain. I was really satisfied with the quality of the audio files with the Official case however on retrieving the case I noticed that the membrane was now perforated. It is a small pin hole (see pics) but I did notice that it was enough for moisture to get in during a second 2-day deployment (~85F high, 70F low, light rain first night) to test just for that issue.
I just wanted to share and see if any others had a similar issue. I saw on the forum that several had issues with the clasps breaking, which I fortunately have not had. I also wanted to ask who I should reach out to about potentially getting another membrane that I could apply to the case? I had thought of trying to just use some tape or piece of a ziploc bag but just wanted to see if it would be possible to get another membrane for the case.
Thanks all!
John
Just to add we ran several in Zambia recently and we found on some units the entire membrane had disintegrated. I highly doubt this is an isolated instance (looking at the comments) and/or that this damage was caused by vegetation/insects - simple because the nature of the damage was consistent across all affected units. We are going back for another season to Ghana/Zambia soon and need to replace the membrane? Anyone got any suggestions on where I can purchase some?
We also have had issues with the membranes rupturing on the IPX7 cases (ours were from Labmaker made in summer 2020). I sent out 65 Audiomoths to volunteers in New Brunswick to monitor Black Scoter migration this spring. Of these, 6 units developed small holes similar in size to those pictured by John Connock, and 1 had a larger round hole. Volunteers reported water in three of the other cases that had no obvious holes in the membrane, though the membranes appear to have unusual creases. Would it be possible to send replacement membranes for these 10 units and possibly some extras? I have only received half of the Audiomoths back from volunteers, so there could be more that leaked.
We had volunteers install the cases facing straight up since we were interested in birds migrating overhead. Was this a bad idea?
Thanks
Hi, The vents are pretty robust and I don't think they are damaged by the slight overpressure, they are rated to 3m of water without any additional support. I think the more likely explanation is probably birds (and possibly insects) attacking them. Can you email andy@openacousticdevices.info. It sounds like the water has damaged the microphone and this can be replaced. Alex