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
Same experience here with our ~100 units used for only one season, after which one or two dozen units are damaged. I observed wasps and bees being interested in the case hole and can also imagine well how these nest-building insects might be interested in drilling a cavity in them.
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
Just recently purchased two cases & two audio moths. Unfortunately upon the very first deployments both cases failed, a hole appeared in the membrane of both of them.
I was wondering if the membrane is too weak for the amount of air pressure created by sealing the clasp maybe?
In any case, one of the two devices is completely dead now, the last good recording it made was of a rainstorm, then the rest are a mix of files that are entirely static or 0kb files where it failed to save. Is there anything I can do to restore this Audiomoth? Also for the case, should I just put some scotch tape over the membrane from the inside?
Doesn't sound particularly tough. We have about 100 out in UK gardens at the moment so we'll check those when they come back.
Backyards in suburban and urban homes around St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Humid, hot, occasional thunder storms, windy.
What's the deployment environment like? Insects and birds have been known to attack vents.
Hi Alex,
No, there is no way. First, I was careful to place the device into the case by holding both sides and flatly placing the device into the case; I was also careful to look at the vent before I did this (we get a lot of rain here!). When I placed these out in the field there were no holes. When I collected them there were holes and nobody had opened the cases. My hardware version was 1.1.0 with the rounded edges. I have no idea what might have caused it. The devices were attached to bamboo tripods and left there for the entire month. Insect chewing? Sacha
Is it possible that these were damaged when the AudioMoth was put into the case? It's possible for the corner of the PCB to scrape across the vent if that corner is inserted first, especially with the earlier 1.0.0 hardware version that had sharper corners.
Hello, I have had the same problem with holes in the membranes. I deployed 63 AudioMoths with these black cases for one month and on return 14 of them had holes in this same location as the above post. The holes were as large as the opening in the plastic in most cases. So far it does not appear to have affected the recordings or the devices but I will have better information on that later. I will use the email above, but just wanted to provide the information to the forum! Sacha
Hi John, If you email andy@openacousticdevices.info we can arrange to send you a replacement vent (and also a new thinner version that we are trying). We just had new batch of clasps moulded with an adjusted temperature and material that should resolve the clasp breakage that we've seen in a small number cases. Alex