General Weather/Earth Sciences Topics > Lightning

EcoWitt WH57 Installed today with a question

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pinner2010:
Afternoon all from Sunny Scotland, today I installed a much wanted WH57 Lightening Detector to my new EcoWitt setup.  I set the sensitivity to Medium. Whilst up at the pole mounting it.. I decided to upgrade a couple of extra mounts to help stability of the main pole using a battery drill. One returning to the house the newly installed sensor had logged 2 lightening bolts. I'm just wondering if the drill being used near it could trip a false reading? There have been no other false readings since.

swright1957:
Hi
Most possible as I did the same when I installed my sensor and has a reading.
After that i took it down and left it for a couple of days just to see, and nothing, so mounted back up and it has been working fine since with readings only when strike were detected, and i have checked these and they are correct.

W Thomas:

--- Quote from: swright1957 on February 25, 2024, 07:39:33 AM ---Hi
Most possible as I did the same when I installed my sensor and has a reading.
After that i took it down and left it for a couple of days just to see, and nothing, so mounted back up and it has been working fine since with readings only when strike were detected, and i have checked these and they are correct.

--- End quote ---

If the drill had a brush motor I would say that is your strikes. There is a small amount of arcing between the brushes and the commutator or the armature and being you were close it saw this a weak strikes more than likely.  Now you know how to test the sensor if you're ever in doubt :)

pinner2010:
Thanks for feedback folks, amazing how these detectors work. Am I correct in saying that they detect emp?

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