Creation - Bolt v1.0

I just posted Bolt v1.0 on Creations. Feel free to discuss and make suggestions here.

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well gee darn, thunderstorm season has passed up in VT. Remind me what IC you are using? Nice to see this finally for sale.

Yeah, unfortunately. Sorry for it to take so long :frowning:
It is based on AS3935

Wow Architecht… this is very cool. I am interested to know exactly how it works and what it does. For example, if it can detect lightning activity from 40 km away I presume it can give very early warning of lighting strikes and even hurricanes and tornados long in advance? What kind of output information does it give?

Already posted a request for one as rainy season has just started here so lots of big thunderstorms to test it with. :slight_smile:

Brochure: http://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20Sheets/Austriamicrosystems%20PDFs/AS3935_FS.pdf

Datasheet: http://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20Sheets/Austriamicrosystems%20PDFs/AS3935.pdf

It’s definitely a neat device.

@ KiwiSaner - I am sorry, I have missed your question somehow.

The device has few options you can change, like if you are outdoor or indoor. Some other settings that affect how the device behave especially spike and disturber rejection. There are basically three parts in the algorithm

1 Signal validation
2 Energy calculation
3 Statistical distance estimation

The device signals a pin when an event is triggered. Three types of events (Noise, Disturber, Lightning). You can mask out the disturber events. The energy calculation and distance estimation happens only for lightning events. When you get a lightning you can read the energy value (just a number no physical meaning) and the distance in kilometers.

That is the essence of it pretty much.

@ Architect - Thank you very much. I found a couple of Youtube videos where they show off the chip. One of the video shows a demo where you can see lightning strikes in the background while a CPU with LCD in the foreground detects each strike at the same time you see the flash. Looks very cool and looks like it works really well.

@ KiwiSaner - you are welcome!

I am going to make a video with emulator and when the season comes will make one with real lightning as well.

Get me my one Architect. :slight_smile:

I have a great view from my apartment and the buildings opposite get some nice strikes during the storms here. Guaranteed almost daily during this rainy season.

@ Dave McLaughlin - Receiving new boards Tuesday hopefully.

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how’s that driver going? Guess why I ask :slight_smile: And the forecast says cloudy with a chance of meatballs / thunderstorms, can’t remember which ;D

Did you receive the package?

:slight_smile: yep

Let me wrap it up and I will put it up for download.

Built the lightning emulator last night. Not sure if it works or not yet. Will test it tonight and will send you the driver after that.

@ Architect - What? You don’t have a Tesla coil laying around? :wink:

We have a lightning storm almost every day just now during the rainy season. No need for any simulator. :stuck_out_tongue:

@ Dave McLaughlin - got it! :wink:

@ ianlee74 - nope, that I don’t have :frowning:

Long Range Lightning Detection Network
http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/uso/ds_docs/gailong/gailong_dataset.html

Canadian Lightning Danger Map - Canada

Canadian technology consists of a number of folks flying kites and lightning strength is measured by the tightness of the curled and fried hair of the kite flyer or pucker factor.

National Lightning Detection Network

Local lightning season is coming up for the great white north and started elsewhere in North America (lucky bastards, it could still be snowing here).