Raspberry IOT Lightning Detector Kit
No Soldering!
We just have added a new product, the Thunder Board I2C Lightning Detector to our lineup and wanted to build a project using it and the Raspberry Pi. We are intending to add drivers for the lightning device to three of our product lines: OurWeather, the SmartPlantPi, the GroveWeatherPi and the WXLink wireless data transmission products. Since we are going to be using the Grove Lightning Detector so extensively, we thought we should build a quick example project.
The ThunderBoard IOT for the Raspberry Pi was thus born.
Check out N8MDP's excellent page on his ThunderBoard IOT project.
What is in the Kit:
Two Additional Grove Cables are included. One in the Grove LCD and one in the Grove Buzzer
This Kit DOES Not include a Raspberry Pi. We used a Raspberry Pi 3, but you can use any of the other boards.
New Tutorial on Thunder Board
Here is a new video tutorial for Tuning the ThunderBoard by Dr. Shovic
What is the IOT?
Put simply, the IOT is about connecting Internet Enabled devices the relay information back to us, to cloud based applications and dashboards and to each other. These smart devices can be anything from computers, to thermostats, to refrigerators, mobile phones, cars or even big things like jet engines.
The Raspberry Pi Thunder Board IOT kit detects lightning, displays it to your local OLED display and then sends it up to your own Internet Dashboard so others can see what is going on with your location. The Thunder Board IOT kit also detects:
- Lightning Strength
- Lightning Count
- Lightning Distance
- Disturber (Electrical Noise) Detection
Pretty cool. And you can add more sensors to sense other things like sunlight, wind speed, direction, rain, etc.
Downloads
Raspberry Pi IOT Python Software
See the IOT Device in Action
Detecting Lightning with the Thunder Kit
How the heck do we detect lightning? You would think it would be pretty easy, but it turns out it is not. It's not just like a giant spark. Well, it is a giant spark, but there are lots of other things that make electrical noise that can be confused for lightning. Your computer (even your Raspberry PI and Arduino!), your car, the motor in your refrigerator, your cell phone, your computer monitor, your AM/FM radio and even your TV. They all make electrical noise that can be confused with Lightning.