SparkFun Qwiic AS3935 Lightning Detector Hookup Guide

This Tutorial is Retired!

This tutorial covers concepts or technologies that are no longer current. It's still here for you to read and enjoy, but may not be as useful as our newest tutorials.

View the updated tutorial: SparkFun AS3935 Lightning Detector Hookup Guide (v20)

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Contributors: Elias The Sparkiest
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Introduction

The SparkFun Qwiic AS3935 Lightning Detector adds lightning detection to your next weather station or to your next bike ride. Are you worried about the looming clouds in the distance, how far away is that storm exactly? The lightning detector can tell you the distance to the front of the storm 40 km away with an accuracy of 1km. It has false positive rejection and comes with many configurable features. To get at those features we have written a library that gives you access to settings such as storm sensing sensitivity when detecting indoors vs outdoors, or the number of lightning strikes needed to trigger an interrupt! The board supports both I2C and SPI, and so we've whipped out the Qwiic connector to make this easy to integrate into the Qwiic environment.

SparkFun Lightning Detector - AS3935 (Qwiic)

SEN-15276
1 Retired

Required Materials

To follow along with the example code used in this tutorial, you will also need the following materials. You may not need everything though depending on what you have. Add it to your cart, read through the guide, and adjust the cart as necessary.

SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic

SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic

DEV-15123
$21.50
19
Qwiic Cable - 50mm

Qwiic Cable - 50mm

PRT-14426
$0.95
USB Micro-B Cable - 6 Foot

USB Micro-B Cable - 6 Foot

CAB-10215
$5.50
15
IC Hook with Pigtail

IC Hook with Pigtail

CAB-09741
$5.50
10

If you need different size Qwiic cables we offer a kit that contains many sizes but we also carry them individually as well:

SparkFun Qwiic Cable Kit

SparkFun Qwiic Cable Kit

KIT-15081
$8.95
20
Qwiic Cable - 100mm

Qwiic Cable - 100mm

PRT-14427
$1.50

Qwiic Cable - 500mm

PRT-14429
1 Retired
Qwiic Cable - Breadboard Jumper (4-pin)

Qwiic Cable - Breadboard Jumper (4-pin)

PRT-14425
$1.50

Tools

Depending on your setup, you will may need a soldering iron, solder, and general soldering accessories.

Soldering Iron - 60W (Adjustable Temperature)

Soldering Iron - 60W (Adjustable Temperature)

TOL-14456
$16.50
16
Solder Lead Free - 15-gram Tube

Solder Lead Free - 15-gram Tube

TOL-09163
$3.95
4

Suggested Reading

If you aren't familiar with the Qwiic system, we recommend reading here for an overview.

Qwiic Connect System
Qwiic Connect System

We would also recommend taking a look at the following tutorials if you aren't familiar with them.

Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)

SPI is commonly used to connect microcontrollers to peripherals such as sensors, shift registers, and SD cards.

I2C

An introduction to I2C, one of the main embedded communications protocols in use today.

How to Work with Jumper Pads and PCB Traces

Handling PCB jumper pads and traces is an essential skill. Learn how to cut a PCB trace, add a solder jumper between pads to reroute connections, and repair a trace with the green wire method if a trace is damaged.

RedBoard Qwiic Hookup Guide

This tutorial covers the basic functionality of the RedBoard Qwiic. This tutorial also covers how to get started blinking an LED and using the Qwiic system.