And now for the time and temperature…

I’ve been noticing that the microphone that has the DHT-11 temperature sensor consistently under-performs the other microphone in terms of how well is stays in sync with the NTP server. I have documented previously that trying to read a non-existent sensor caused major sync issues, but I now know that even if the sensor is working properly, it still throws the sync off slightly.

On mic 001 (the one with the temperature sensor). I was seeing the average offset being somewhere around +/-1300 microseconds, whereas on mic 004 (the one without the sensor or code to read it). I was typically seeing offsets of +/-300-400 microseconds (1/4 to 1/3 as large). So I disabled the DHT-11 on mic 001, and within 15 minutes the average offset was +/- 400-500 microseconds, and the timing of received sound waves was much more in sync.

I have no idea what this was, but both mics agree when it was.

And zooming in on that first big positive peak you can see that they’re only about 400 microseconds apart, which is pretty good.

.9093730-.909344 = .000386 seconds, or 386 microseconds difference

It’s not the 100 to 200 microsecond offset I’m looking for, but I can live with this level of error.

Now what am I going to do with the temperature sensor? I still need to be able to measure ambient air temperature to calculate the speed of sound accurately, but it was never a requirement that I have 4 of them or that they be co-located with microphones. I have some spare ESP8266 feathers now, and while they’re not good for the microphones, I can easily re-purpose them to being a couple of temperature sensors. I’ll play with low-power deep-sleep and have them wake up every 30 seconds or so to check the temp and report in. That should give me a fairly accurate and current air temp.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *