1-wire Lightning Dector - Actual Attempt

[JaxWeather]

and at:
http://www.flamedia.com/lightning/light.htm

LOL

I am hoping for some storms if nothing else to cool things off...  Too bad you weren't watching yesterday when we had over 450 strikes recorded here at my station in about 2 hours   Oyyyyyyyyyyyyyy   LOL

-Bob

[JaxWeather]

It appears as though tonight is gonna be a wash for lightning.

Just got back in from watching a really nice Lightning display in the sky however it was from a cell approximately 50 miles away which is outside of my station range.  It has subsided now and conditions don't look great for any additional development tonight...

There is always tomorrow  LOL

-Bob

[JaxWeather]

Thanks! Hurry up and make some more lightning

A couple of strikes recorded finally and hopefully many - many more to come as the afternoon - evening goes by

-Bob

[NorCal Dan]

Are you listed on here http://www.lightningnetwork.org/lightning/index.html?

[JaxWeather]

Dan,

Not that I am aware of.  I believe this is just testing for the new reporting ability that Brian added to WD...

Not sure what if anything will come of it.

-Bob

[EricVic]

Chris,

Sorry for the late reply, I was on vacation. Down in Bob's neck of the woods, we took a cruise that left out of Jacksonville and I think I saw the storm that he got 499 strikes from right as we were sailing away

It could be that the lightning detector could use a bit of power to make sure it doesn't lose count if the 1-wire is heavily loaded. It is one of the only boards left that can't take external power, I will look at possibly changing that next time I order some boards. Unfortunately I just ordered more boards so it may be a while. Always looking to improve though.

Eric

[Stuntman]

I installed my hobby-boards lightning sensor today and put a solar sensor on the line from it.. the solar sensor is working great and since it comes off the lightning sensor I am assuming everything is wired correctly...

WD sees both and I think I've got them both configured correctly.. the only problem so far is that the lightning sensor is recording lots.. as in a couple hundred today, of hits!  The case I put it in isn't entirely water proof yet, though I can't imagine it got too wet in there (it rained a bit today)..  My ground road is only about 12 inches in so far as I haven't had time to start hammering it down...

I wonder..

1) if the sensor gets wet can it 'short' to provide the kind of hits I am seeing?
2) if the grounding rod isn't deep, does this affect the accuracy?

Thanks!

[carterlake]

1) if the sensor gets wet can it 'short' to provide the kind of hits I am seeing?
2) if the grounding rod isn't deep, does this affect the accuracy?

1) Yes. In fact, it can -potentially- ruin the sensor.

2) Yes, that is probably the most important factor (well other than keeping electronics out of water!). However, since you said it rained and I assume the ground was wet, you probably had a good ground.

Where on earth are you putting this sensor?

[Stuntman]

1) Yes. In fact, it can -potentially- ruin the sensor.

2) Yes, that is probably the most important factor (well other than keeping electronics out of water!). However, since you said it rained and I assume the ground was wet, you probably had a good ground.

Where on earth are you putting this sensor?

The sensor is on the roof as I wanted to use the existing wire that the old solar sensor was using..   I put the unit in a box, but had to drill holes in the box to get the wires in and out.. I didn't have time to fill the holes to make it water proof, but I did put some tape around the holes.. so if water got in, it shouldn't have been much.. these were coated by Eric at hobby boards with some type of water proofing (he states I can leave the solar sensor out in the rain without an issue..  I was curious though that the lightning sensor got 0 hits until after it rained.. I'm still getting hits today, but much less.. seems that the longer it has been since the rain the fewer hits I'm getting! 

The ground pole is about 1 foot maybe 2 feet into the ground.. does the ground pole need to be 6 feet into the ground to get a good ground... It may eventually get that far down.. but that is a lot of pounding!!  And I have pretty rocky soil, so I may hit a boulder 3 feet down...

I'll try to dry that box out tonight and seal the holes...  if rain got in, it would not have been much (we got a total of .03 inches over 12 hours)..

Thanks!

[carterlake]

If the lightning sensor did get wet, then what you are describing sounds right. As the sensor dries out, you will get fewer and fewer false hits. The problems are: 1) if something was damaged by shorting, and 2) long-term corrosion. I would also worry about the battery which can be outdoors but should -NOT- get wet. Did you say that Hobby Boards coated the lightning detector?

An outdoors grounding rod should be at least 6 feet into the ground. Since you said you have rocky soil (with good drainage, I assume) you'll probably want your rod in at least 8 or even 10 feet. What you're looking for is a rod in the ground so far down that the soil never dries out.  So you could leave it at 1-2 feet and water the rod every day. 

[niko]

Alternative explanation, rain causes problems with power line insulators, especially if they are old/dirty, so possibly you have some electrical discharge nearby that is going away as things dry out. Be interesting to see if it re-appears next time it rains. If you are getting lots of hits try a validation test by tuning an AM radio between stations at the lower end of the frequency range and see if you hear a lot of crackling.

[Stuntman]

Alternative explanation, rain causes problems with power line insulators, especially if they are old/dirty, so possibly you have some electrical discharge nearby that is going away as things dry out. Be interesting to see if it re-appears next time it rains. If you are getting lots of hits try a validation test by tuning an AM radio between stations at the lower end of the frequency range and see if you hear a lot of crackling.

Thanks.. will try that.. I do have overhead powerlines in my neighborhood and they are probalby 75-100 feet from where my detector is..

[ws vreewijk]

Hello All,

Somehowe this one wire  topic ended a long time ago.
I have learnd a lot from this topic that is for shure.

So are there still people using this detector and how are your results ??????

Can someone give me a hint how to arrange automatic update the lightning Graph on my web as now one has to press F5 button to refresh the counts I use the weatherdisplay one wire lightning part.
I do not want  to refresh my total web page only the lightning part.

On the bottom of this page you can see my testing's  http://wsvreewijk.ucoz.com/index/lightning/0-5

See forward to hear from you guys.


cheers \Chris

[Moventor]

For the ground rods you might try a post driver, it is a pipe with one end sealed and two handles on each side, designed to slide over the post or rod in this case and allows you to hammer the rod in fairly easily. I used it on my 10 foot rod and drove it in without any troubles, and then finished the last few feet with a hammer, leaving about 8 inches above ground for the connector. The post driver is usually made of heavy pipe, I bought mine for about 20 dollars a few years ago when installing my dog kennels and posts for sat. tv.

[ws vreewijk]

   Hello All.

Sorry you live to far away otherwise your post drives was very handy

UPDATE: I increased the antenna to about 230 cm lenght  and made a perfect grounding with a galvanised
1" rod driven over 2 meters deep into the ground reaching the ground water level.

The number of false strikes by the mains where reduced and my detection range upto 250 km,so it works just great.
The only problem left is weather display every 6  days it stops with this problem:

 unable to write to c:wdisplaywdisplay.ini

Further i have seen somting like.... there is no disk space to carry out bla bla bla.

Is there some one who knows how to solve this problem.
shut down weather display do \NOT solve the problem after a pc reboot it is ok for another 6 days.



Further to that I can say this detector is perfect for ones that only want to see the counts.

Cheers Chris