I received my AS3935 board from Embedded Adventures. Initially, I tried using 2 meter CAT5 and 8-conductor telephone-style cables to connect the board to the Red controller, per my earlier post and photos. This resulted in very unreliable I2C bus operation. Any attempt to modify settings would cause the AS3935 to be "un-detected" by the firmware. I saw this behavior on both firmware versions 6.0 and 6.1. I tried enabling the I2C and AS3935 debug messages. The debug log confirmed that there were repeated I2C bus errors when the controller attempted communication with the AS3935 board.
I gave up on the idea of remotely mounting the AS3935 in an enclosure and instead mounted it within the Red controller housing itself with a lead length of only 4 inches or so. This completely resolved the AS3935 communication issues. I expected to have to reduce the sensitivity and increase the spike rejection and signal threshold to compensate for the noise generated by the Red controller. However, this was not the case! I am able run at maximum sensitivity (minimum noise floor), "outdoor" setting checked, with the signal threshold and spike detection both set very low ("1"). With these settings, I see only very occasional disturber events. Since my controller is located on the second floor of my home near the Red amplifier, I believe detection still should be pretty good.
I posted a few questions about the operation of the AS3935 settings for Tobi on the Blitzortung forum:
- My board came with a recommended antenna capacitor calibration value for my specific board. However, the settings page has no way to enter the calibration value directly. The AS3935 log shows that a calibration routine is run at boot. Does this routine set the optimal antenna coil capacitor value?
- According to the AS3935 data sheet, the "Min. number of lightning" setting sets the number of strikes needed within a 15-minute interval before valid lightning detection events will generate an interrupt?
- The AS3935 alert settings allow setting a distance value greater than 40 km. However, the maximum distance that the AS3935 will detect is 40 km before reporting "out of range". Should this field only allow setting the valid AS3935 distances? These are "Storm is overhead", 5,6,8,10,12,14,17,20,24,27,31,34,37,40, and "Out of range" according to the AS3935 data sheet. What happens if a value greater than 40 km is defined?
- I have defined an alert that sounds a short single beep. I linked that alert to an AS3935 event with a minimum distance of 0 km and minimum lightning count of 1. Will the alert sound only on the first lightning event at any distance, or will subsequent single lightning events sound the alert beep as well? In other words, when does the AS3935 event trigger "reset"?
- The AS3935 seems to enter "interference mode" for a few seconds when a reboot occurs. If I set the spike detection and signal threshold to "0", the values get set to something higher after interference mode exits, typically "3". Is this a function of the AS3935 board or the Red firmware?
- With version 6.1 of the firmware, what is the new definition of an "event". My disturber count increases, but the event count remains at "1", set when the first disturber was detected. I thought the definition for events was (lightning events + disturber events).
Don