Home Made Lightning Detector

A home made lightning Detector built from circuits found at Techlib.com.
The circuit will detect lightning strikes some distance away and can use an indoor or external antenna (when storm activity is not nearby!)

The unit indicates lightning activity by using a bright white LED which will flash upon detection of strikes. A meter will increment with strike activity and will deflect quickly with high strike activity or just a little when activity is low or strikes are infrequent.

The unit also is fitted with a data port which can be used to drive external circuits such as a counter or computer data logger. The options are endless.

I built this for a fun holiday project, and have put this one down also as a success!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• VK3TVZ
• Lightning
• Detector
• strike
• flash
• LED
• meter
• sensor
• data
• logger
• toggle
• homemade
• homebrew
• equipment

[TheHossHobart]

@jphdg...Sorry to take so long in getting back with you. I made mine with just an LED indicator. I attached the antenna to the input capacitor that goes to the amplifier transistor because it is much more sensitive That way. If I attach the antenna to the tank circuit, it doesn't work right. It might be because the 10 millihenry coil has 112 ohms DCR. Other than that it seems to work ok.

Tim

[jphdg]

@TheHossHobart

All good Tim.

I used an old base station 5.5m long CB antenna outside. Works like a charm except when we get some bad bursts of power line interference there is enough strength to trigger off the detector during the power arcs. Sensitive enough with that antenna for about 150Kms I believe.

When storms gets closer, I will disconnect it & use a 4 foot telescopic whip with BNC plug straight off the back of the unit as seen in the video and performance is I guess reasonable.

[jphdg]

Hi Tim,

No worries.. glad you have it figured out.

Are you building yours solely as LED indication or are you adding extras such as a logic output to drive an event counter / PC logger?

Should be easy to add as you can take the signal off the output transistor driving your LED circuit as long as you don't load it down. (Hence high impedance)

Looking forward to some real good storm activity for more testing now that Summer is just around the corner!

Happy and safe storm detecting!

[darkirqifshah]

How to enter the techlib.com website..?

Thanks..

[TheHossHobart]

@jphdg...Never mind mate. I found the problem. I had a wire in the wrong place!

Tim

[TheHossHobart]

@jphdg...Hi John. Did you have any trouble out of your lightning detector when you first wired it up? I wired mine up 3 times and its still not working right. I am using a spark coil to simulate lightning. I notice that when I disconnect one of the battery leads the led will stay lit, then it will glow brightly and then of couse stop. Any suggestions?

Tim