Edit 3: Looking closer at what the debug messages were telling me, it became clear that the H field was missing any data. Out to the outdoor box with the H field antennas and look at the status LED which is off more than on. A quick wiggle of the lan cable indicated a dry joint. Back into the workshop and a quick joint refresh with normal leaded solder and hey presto all working again.

Moral, do not trust lead free solder. PPS (P*ss Poor Soldering) and lead free do not mix. As an electronics professional, I am really quite annoyed with myself, I have never knowingly had a dry joint. Oh well I guess there is always a first time...

Edit 2: Not working. Looks like something is still not happy. Still getting ADC errors...

Edit 1. Look at the input voltage. Clearly this device requires more than the POE converter can provide. The supply voltage was circa 3.84v. Now plugged into a PI USB2 port and voltage is up to 4.2v and the device appears to be much happier...

However that was still not enough. Now powered by a wall wart supply and getting 4.72v+.

So folks the lesson here is to be careful of your volts! Whilst trying to get rid of "wall Warts" to save power, make sure your proposed solution is up to the task!

Jon 

Hi Folks

Just noticed that my system was not picking up much of the storms across eastern Europe.

It looks like it has gone deaf. Carried out a reboot but not much happening. 

Power LED on, Network LED on and GPS LED Flashing, that's about it.

Looking at the data received it appears something changed around 20 July. No local power disturbances or storms, Unit is fed from a POE switch via an adaptor and the whole lot is on a UPS... 

Are there any bits of advice as to what I can do to diagnose what is going on?

Nothing showing in the debug log unless GPS and Web are selected...

Additional: Some info the the debug log, I do not think it makes good reading...

Any help gratefully.... 

Thanks

Jon

Attached Files

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  lightning-22-07-27.txt (Size: 16.74 KB / Downloads: 5)

Hi!

My preamp circuit board is badly corroded. Can you get that PCB 5 ver 6 circuit board from anywhere new.

I would buy a new system entirely, otherwise I don't think it's possible. My position id 319.

Matti

Thanks its been Sold

New March 1, 2022, NOAA GOES -18 Lightning Mapper Satellite data is published in this public YouTube link

https://youtu.be/lgvz4_qG7i8

The last few days the Blitzortung Lightning Tracker app has stopped updating with data.  Not working on either an android tablet or phone.  
It is/was my fav. app for display of our data.

If the author is on our forum it would be nice to get a fix.  It hasn't been updated since 2019 however so may be done for.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...n_US&gl=US

Hi,
   I have a System Blue PCB 19.5.
I followed the instructions for 19.4 and removed the onboard voltage regulator. Is there an external regulator that is required or should I have left the onboard regulator on?
 Is 19.5 a good functioning board? I can't find references to it on the web site, a friend in Massachusetts obtained a System Blue at approximately the same time as I received mine and was never able to get it to work and he is a very experienced electrical engineer.
Thank you,
Warren K2ORS

I have reciently received back from Falkland Islands (VP8) a system Blue. This system control box only shows a single red Led. The damage report suggested the PSU was damaged by a close proximity lighting strike. This appeared to have placed a very large voltage spike onto the PCB. There was no indication of a date when this strike happened. I'm not sure if this unit plus antennas ever really worked. I know there were local problems with linking to a computer for internet access particularly for long periods.

My real question is can this System Blue be returned for repair or at least a review.

Roger G0SWC 

Hello All;
I'm just new to Blitzortung but have been operating my own weather station for a few years now (enthusiast - data send to WOW Weather). As you may know Western Australia is a fairly large chunk of land (2.6 million sq Km), yet there are only 5 detectors in total, all located within a small area in and around the capital - Perth. I live about 1600kn north of the capital in a small town near Karratha (in the Pilbara). The north west of our state has some of the most active storm/lightening areas around - a weekend in February a few weeks back recorded some 2 million lightening strikes in the Gascoyne, Pilbara and Kimberly regions.
I have recently ordered a Blue system - and joined the 6000+ waiting list. Hopefully things will move alone fairly quickly as views from our porch on pretty much any given night in summer reminds me there is a hell of strike data that is just waiting to be captured!

Also just putting it out there to anyone else who lives in this region that is also interested in setting up a detector is these parts...please feel free to introduce yourself and have a chat!!

Regards
Smithy

Has anyone tried replacing the mini with a micro USB connector on the System Blue?  It looks like it should be a direct swap and micro USB cables, especially longer ones, are far easier to source than mini USB thanks to the Pi ecosystem.

Hi, 

A new thread regarding the topic of lightning physic. I found this article in wikipedia extremly interesting and I want to try it.... Franklin bells. Below some pictures of it:

   

   

   

The part a) consists in a kind of antenna totally isolated from the ground. I bought a metallic sphere in order to avoid any kind of corona discharge of the structure. The sphere is connected to the Franklins bell structure, more exactly on the left bell. 

On b) we can see that the left bell is very close to the right one and in-between there is a small metallic bead (piercing material) also isolated from the ground which can oscillate freely between the two bells. A pendulum so to speak. The right bell is connected to the ground.

During keraunic activity the antenna and de facto the bell is charged, the small bead (if initially connected to the antenna bell) will also be charged with the same polarity. At some points the charge is high enough so that the electrostatic forces repulse the small bead to the ground charged bell, and vice versa... The system is ringing.

I thought that this was not really efficiently working, the electrical storm of yesterday proved me that I was wrong.

   

Another evidence of this principlein this video Franklin's bell.

Do not hesitate to send me feedback if you want some more information or if you have questions. 

Looking forward to it.