My System Red kit arrived yesterday at 1:00 PM. I completed assembly at 9:00 PM and am now active and sending data from the Chicago area. It was just in time for a severe thunderstorm.
I took my time with construction, and all went smoothly. The amp and controller powered up the first time. In a few minutes I had the flat panel loop antennas, GPS and network connected. After entering the processor ID in my user information, I was sending data. My station ID is 681, user 599.
The most challenging part of the build was soldering the surface mount op amps and the GPS module. I used lots of rosin flux paste beneath the parts and very fine solder to make the connections. The solder paste I used is not the stuff with actual solder mixed in. It is a jellied rosin based flux only (from Radio Shack)...amber colored and inexpensive. It causes the applied solder to flow on the surface mount parts with no solder bridges. The excess needs to be cleaned off with alcohol afterward. The stuff is slightly sticky so it helps hold the component in place while getting that first critical pin soldered. Using the flux and some fine solder the GPS module went on in seconds. The hardest part was aligning the GPS module to the pads as they have a concave connection pin design that can make visually aligning the part tricky.
The signal scope on the web page is not working very well, but the page warns it is a beta feature. The signal display works perfectly on my Android pad running Chrome....perfect display and auto-update. Not so on IE. Chrome on the PC updates for a while, then stops.
The kit had NO missing or extra components. My compliments to the kit packager.
A severe thunderstorm was approaching as I first put the station into service. I had the gain set to 2x2 initially. The board periodically went into interference mode with the intense approaching storm. I tried boosting the gain to 4x2 from the web interface. The board went into interference mode about 75% of the time. After a minute or so the board gave a loud beep, the LCD said a new gain setting was applied, and the gain was set back to 2x2. The controller rebooted for some reason. Because I had not saved my gain settings to FLASH memory through the web page, the board displayed the gain change message and defaulted back to the lowest gain. I'm not sure why the reset occurred. It happened when the board was very frequently going in and out of interference mode during a thunderstorm. I believe this is a bug in the firmware, which I have reported.
I see that so far my station has a very high efficiency percentage on the web pages (>90%). Is this a measure of correlated strikes/total strikes or something else?
The operation of the System Red blue "user" button in combination with the LCD display is currently undocumented. Here's what I discovered by experimentation.
A single quick press of the blue button scrolls through the status screens. The status category is highlighted at the top of the screen. Once in a category, a long press of the blue button displays settings that can be made from the board affecting the current category. Once in that settings menu, a quick press of the button scrolls through the selections. Once the item one wishes to change is selected, a long press executes the change. The display then returns back to the status display. (Much easier to make changes via the web server).
A VERY long press in any display mode seems to toggle the lightning detect click to the buzzer on and off.
Nice implementation of a single button user interface!
I decided to try using the Red amp to also drive my Lightning Radar setup. I used the test header on the amp board to connect a stereo audio cable to my LR laptop. This works great, likely due to the high impedance of the sound card input. I had to back the gain on the laptop down some. The Red controller saw no reduction in hit frequency or sensitivity. My efficiency ratings are still at the top of the list for US stations.
The lightning radar performance with the Red amp board can be seen at
http://projectmf.homelinux.com. It is really good, accurately locating strikes when connected to the Florida LR station (I'm near Chicago).
Two systems with one pair of antennas!
Regards,
Don