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lightning sensor not reporting time and date

From build 3044 the development baton passed to Mark Crossley. Mark has been responsible for all the Builds since. He has made the code available on GitHub. It is Mark's hope that others will join in this development, but at the very least he welcomes your ideas for future developments (see Cumulus MX Development suggestions).

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TonyG
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lightning sensor not reporting time and date

Post by TonyG »

Having lost numerous wifi access points and router/modems to electrical storms I have a particular interest in lightning! I was quite excited to see that ecowitt do a lightning sensor. I duly bought a WH57.
Cumulus reports the strikes and distance but does not seem to be attaching the time and date of the last strike correctly. The screen shot is from this morning. (latest build)
Probably only of interest to me! :-)
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mcrossley
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Re: lightning sensor not reporting time and date

Post by mcrossley »

please switch on data logging, then post your latest MXdiags file.
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mcrossley
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Re: lightning sensor not reporting time and date

Post by mcrossley »

Also, what station do you have configured? GW1000 or Ecowitt HTTP?
TonyG
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Re: lightning sensor not reporting time and date

Post by TonyG »

Thanks Mark, It's configured as an Ecowitt GW1000.
Logfile attached.
If nothing else this alerted me to the fact I'd left FTP logging running - 200mb log file! :lol:
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mcrossley
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Re: lightning sensor not reporting time and date

Post by mcrossley »

Hi Tony, the station is sending...

Strikes = 4
Distance = 16km
Time = 0xFFFFFFFF = no time registered

Have you actually had any lightening today, or the last week? (I do not recall how long the GW1000 retains the last time value, but iirc it isn't that long).

CMX will record the last lightning time once it has received a value and continue using that even if the GW1000 stops sending it.
TonyG
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Re: lightning sensor not reporting time and date

Post by TonyG »

Mark, yes the lightning was this morning. Ecowitt.net has the time and date logged.
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mcrossley
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Re: lightning sensor not reporting time and date

Post by mcrossley »

Looks like a bug in the GW1000 then - it has worked in the past for people. Has there been a recent firmware update?
TonyG
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Re: lightning sensor not reporting time and date

Post by TonyG »

OK. Thanks Mark. Firmware has been updated at some point but I don't think recently otherwise I'd remember. It's on V1.6.8. I seem to remember it's a push update? So I think it's current. It's impossible to test as I've never been able to find a way to trigger the detector other than with a genuine lightning strike. Anyway not a problem, just thought I'd flag it.
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Re: lightning sensor not reporting time and date

Post by Mapantz »

TonyG wrote: Wed 20 Oct 2021 1:58 pm OK. Thanks Mark. Firmware has been updated at some point but I don't think recently otherwise I'd remember. It's on V1.6.8. I seem to remember it's a push update? So I think it's current. It's impossible to test as I've never been able to find a way to trigger the detector other than with a genuine lightning strike. Anyway not a problem, just thought I'd flag it.
Use a TV remote about 3 or 4" away from it, and hit random buttons - holding them down for 4 or 5 second. Always works for me when testing. 8-)
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TonyG
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Re: lightning sensor not reporting time and date

Post by TonyG »

Interesting. I thought TV remotes were Infrared whereas lightning detectors look around the 300khz radio band? But if it has worked for you I'll give it a go. (I've tried various piezoelectric fire lighters with no luck.)
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