Quick Use Checklist

Preparation

Charge MOTHBOX
- Make sure it is plugged in
- Make sure battery switch is ON
- Charge only with the official charger
- When light on charger has turned from red to green, the battery is fully charged. (this is the only real way that you know the battery is fully charged)
Check that you have a USB drive plugged in to the Raspberry Pi.
Item Checklist. Make sure to have all these parts with you BEFORE you go into the field.
- Mothbox
- Target
- 4 Arms
- 4 leg connectors (Zips or Bolts+Nuts)
- Strap
- Security chain and lock (if deploying in places where theft may be an issue)

In the Field

Activate Mothbox / Check STANDBY Mode
- Make sure “ACTIVE” switch is ON
- turn the battery on
- If the Mothbox is ready for deploment, the attractor lights will blink twice rapidly, and the display will show “STANDBY” mode.
- In STANDBY mode, the Mothbox will activate itself during its next scheduled session (no further action is required by you to turn itself on).
Close Mothbox
Attach legs to bottom
Hang Mothbox with strap
Remove Front Lid
Visual Inspection
- Check area in front of camera for dirt
- Inspect area in front of target so that no leaves will block camera’s view of target
Finally, connect target to arms
Log all metadata on field sheet

Data collection

Collect Mothbox from the field
Unplug USB drive from Raspberry Pi
Copy contents of USB to computer and backup data in at least 2 spots
Clear data from USB
Connect USB back to Mothbox
Charge Mothbox for next deployment

Detailed Instructions

Charge the Battery before 1st use!

warning: When you purchase the batteries, they are often not fully charged! This can be a problem because several people have connected their pi’s to a barely charged battery and the low-power causes them to “brown out” and have eeprom errors (where you then have to use the raspberry pi imager to reset the bootloader to get your pi working!)

Save yourself a headache, and charge your battery before you connect it the first time!

Preparation

Here’s what you need to do to make sure your Mothbox is ready for deployment!

Make sure the battery is ON. The switch to the battery should ALWAYS BE IN THE ON POSITION. Open the Mothbox make sure the battery switch is ON (if it’s not already on).

Charge your Mothbox. This usually takes several hours. Plug it in. Only use the Mothbox charger to charge. You may have other chargers that look similar for other devices, but they are not interchangeable and will not charge the Mothbox correctly.

If the plug’s indicator is red, the Mothbox is charging. When charger light turns green, the Mothbox is fully charged!

(Optional) De-Activate Mothbox. Sometimes if you are charging the devices overnight (or during times they are scheduled to take photos), it can be useful to disable the Mothbox from running. There is a switch labeled “Active” which can keep the Mothbox in an OFF mode if it is switched off. You can switch this to the OFF position while it is charging.

USB Storage. Make sure there is external storage with free space plugged in to the Pi’s USB to record your photos.

Item Checklist. Make sure to have all these parts with you BEFORE you go into the field.
- Mothbox
- Target
- 4 Arms
- 4 leg connectors (Zips or Bolts+Nuts)
- Strap
- Security chain and lock (if deploying in places where theft may be an issue)

Pack Mothbox for travel to the field.
- (Optional) If you are travelling far, you can turn the battery switch OFF.
- Connect Lids. Attach the front and back lids to protect it during travel.

Video Deployment Tutorial

Deployment in the Field

Check device is ready to Activate.
- Make sure the “Active” switch is in the ON position.

You can turn the battery power off and then on again, and the mothbox should boot up
If the Mothbox is ready for deploment, the attractor lights will blink twice rapidly, and the display will show “STANDBY” mode.

In STANDBY mode, the Mothbox will activate itself during its next scheduled session (no further action is required by you to turn itself on).
Close Box. Make sure box is fully closed at all four corners.

Attach arms. You can connect arms to the bottom of the case using several options
- 1/4” bolts and nuts
- re-usable zip ties
- or Rubber ties

Hang Mothbox. Using the handle, strap Mothbox to a tree or tripod.

Make sure there are no obstacles (like leaves or tall grasses) that may blow between the box and the target and obstruct photos.

In general, the Mothbox should be at least 0.5 meters above the ground.
Remove Front Lid.

Inspect Camera area. Check lens for dirt and clean with a lens wipe if necessary.

Connect Target. Attaching the target should be one of the last things you do, because you want to protect it from getting dirty. If you have it connected earlier, it could easily bump into wet or dirty plants and get muddy.

Log Data. Write down all the metadata about this deployment on your field sheet.

warning: Don’t look directly at UV light. UV light is very bright but invisible to your eye. Eye pain or headaches can occur with long exposure. Use eye protection if working with Mothbox for extended periods while it’s on.

Default schedule: Mothbox will take photos from 19:00-20:00, 22:00-23:00, 1:00-2:00, and 4:00-5:00. If you want it to take photos at different times, change the settings.

Collecting the Mothbox and Data

Collect the Mothbox. Make note of any damage, such as water inside case, dirt on target, or physical injury.
Disarm the Mothbox with disarming wires (jump wires).
Disconnect external storage from the USB port and check out all your cool photos!
Backup and organize all the photos from the external storage, and then clean this storage device, deleting all the old folders so it is ready for the next deployment.
Charge for the next deployment.

Process Data

You might want to process the data you collected from your Mothbox. Go to the next section, Refining Data to turn all your photos into organized data.

Additional Information

Metadata Sheet

Your data isn’t useful unless you know where it came from! Always log your metadata with a field sheet.

You can fill out a form online or print a sheet to take to the field.

You can even use a pre-filled form for use in Panama

Inventory of Mothboxes

If you are running a project with many Mothboxes (more than about 4), you probably want to start keeping an inventory. Field equipment can get lost, forgotten, or busted up, so it’s handy to know what you have available if a new opportunity strikes! Here’s an example of how we organize our inventory of mothboxes. (If you have suggestions for better organizational schema, please let us know!)

Manually Turning the Mothbox On and Off

There are a couple different power states that the Mothbox can be in:

Battery Off: When the battery is off, everything is off
Battery On / Raspberry Pi Off: When the raspberry pi has a RED light on it, it means it is in low-power mode and not on
Battery on / Raspberry Pi On: When the pi has a GREEN light, it means it is on (and either probably in Debug mode or Active mode)

The Mothbox has an internal schedule that lets it stay in a low-power state until it is ready to turn itself on. Sometimes you may wish to manually trigger the Mothbox to wake up, you can do this just by clicking the little white button next to the SD card on the Raspberry Pi. Just tap it once, and it will start up.

If you want to gently turn it back off with your finger, you can do this by pressing and holding the white button for 10 seconds. Just press the button and hold it until the mothbox has shut off and the light on the Raspberry pi has gone from GREEN to RED.

Mothbox Name

The Mothboxes all have a unique, persistent name (based on the Pi’s serial number). The names are in the format of (descriptiveword+animal) and are made from the thousand most common descriptive words and animals in both English and Spanish.

This is why you will have names like “DotingBruja” or “PrizeCrab.” This unique name will be applied to all the photos it takes to give them a unqiue stamp.

Updated mothboxes will also show the name prominently on the epaper display!