Well I had a severe storm pass over. If the signal threshold was set at 0, it was picking up signals, but none seemed to correlate to what I could visually see out the window. For example I could see a strike, and it would not register. Or it would pick up a strike that I did not see and no thunder. So I set the threshold to 1 and received a few signals all at 1km, but the BO network picked up at least 20 in the close range area and I visually saw more that neither picked up.
My experience with the AS3935 so far is that, setting it too sensitive makes it less sensitive to local strikes, and make it less sensitive makes it's less sensitive to remote strikes. When playing with it as a device on it's own (i.e. not connected to red), I've found the default settings to be the best, and there are situations where you pickup small intracloud discharges. I haven't played with it a lot with the Red yet, but the storm I had roll through yesterday, I had accurate timing when strikes were overhead (i.e. flash, alarm alert co-incident with about 50% of the stokes I could see / hear correlation, and much better detection than BO). Also, the distance when the storm approached and left also made sense for the level of activity / movement on radar (i.e. 20-40km out).
Well I haI am thinking about remotely locating the AS3935 away from the controller. Right now it is in the basement garage which is mostly underground except for the garage doors. Will longer wires work? Is there a good place to get them pre-made? Or is something like the boards that Jet made the way to go?
Longer wires likely won't work with I2C. I2C is fairly low powered and assumes low capacitance in it's cabling, which means short cables. Theorectically you should be able to get a few feet out of i2C, without any drivers, and reducing the speed should help too however I've heard reports on the red that 6 inches is about the limit until you start getting corruption.
There are a few options for the boards. The AS3935 does not have legs, so it's the only component that's hard to solder without solder paste / reflow technique. Everything else is 0603's, SSOPs (i.e. similar to soldering a red controller), and then there's a TSSOP which is still solderable just (with some solder wick). The prototype I did was toaster oven reflowed, and vias / thru hole were hand soldered afterwards, only because if I was reflowing the AS3935, I might as well reflow the rest at the same time. I have heard the AS3935 can be hand soldered, but have never tried that as it looks like it would be a pain, the pads to wrap around so it should be just about possible.
I don't really want to get into mass producing / assembling boards, but would consider ordering a few purple PCB's from OSHPark (lead time 4 weeks) and hand assembling (or part assembling) a few at close to cost for those who already have a station running and contribute their time to the community. I.E. As pay back for the excellent resources you're contributing to. PM me.