Nuts and Volts - December 2010

www.nutsvolts.com/index.php?/magazine/article/december2010_QA

■ FIGURE 3

any help or suggestions.

— Marvin

AI have made a layout; see Figure 1. I plan to post the mirrored bottom layer on the N & V website so anyone can download it. Just load the .bmp file into Paint and print it. It will come out the right size so you can make a laser copy and iron it onto your copper clad. You will need to add some wires because I only made it single-sided. The parts placement guide (layout) is a separate file.

electrical device via a solid-state relay when the storm was imminently close. I was thinking of using a microphone, photo detector, and some type of moisture sensor. The PIC would have to calculate the fact that it is raining, then “see” the lightning flash and “hear” the thunder. These would all be ANDED together.

— Fernando Cordero

LIGHTNING DETECTOR PARTS LIST PART DESCRIPTION R1, R2, R9, R13, R8 R3 R4, R7 R5 R6 R10 R11, R12 C1, C3, C5 C2 C4 IC1 IC2 IC3 IC4 SW1

■ FIGURE 4

PART # COST

LIGHTNING PROTECTION CIRCUIT

QI have recently become fascinated with PIC microcontrollers and their capabilities. I was wondering if a PIC circuit can be made to (1) detect the rain; ( 2) detect the flash of lightning; and ( 3) determine the distance of the storm by the time delay of the sound of thunder.