Blitzortung Kit Assembly

The Blitzortung lightning detection kit was purchased by my cousin for his home weather station, I assembled the kit and performed initial testing.  This project shows part of the assembly process, final assembly pictures and a couple videos of the initial power-up test.  The begin with, a link to the  Blitzortung.org overview is here.

The instructions that were used for this assembly process can be found here.  It would be best to use the most updated documentation, which would be located here.  They are quite good, the only issue is the lack of pictures that would help to clarify some steps.

The only difficult part of this kit assembly is the surface mount devices.  The process is made easier with a quality soldering iron, in this case a Weller WTCPT with a PTK7 tip.

Start by inventorying the parts, labeling the resistors with some blue painter’s tape.  This does not take a lot of time and will make the assembly process move along smoothly.

Blitzortung_Kit Blitzortung_Kits_PartsLabeled

Bending leads is simple, lay the component on the PCB to gage the hole distance from the body of the resistor.  Using a pair of fine needle-nose pliers, bend the lead at a 90 degree angle and repeat for the the second lead.  Insert into the board and bend the first and then the second wire 45 degrees to the side to hold in place.

Blitzortung_Amplifier_ResistorLeadMeasure Blitzortung_Amplifier_ResistorLeadBend Blitzortung_Amplifier_ResistorLeadComplete Blitzortung_Amplifier_ResistorLeads

Except for the SMD and IC sockets, that bend, insert, solder routine will be repeated over and over again.

 

There are two points during the assembly that power is applied for testing purposes.  The first, for the amplifier, is on page 14:

The second for the controller is on page 23:

 

Gallery:

 

 

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