NOTE: This Click board™ is designed to serve as a valuable tool for testing and validating the performance of the AS3935 lightning sensor, which can be found on our Thunder Click board™. Use the emulator to simulate various lightning scenarios, allowing for comprehensive testing and fine-tuning of AS3935's responsiveness. For more information about Thunder Click, please visit its product page.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Thunder EMU Click is based on the circuits generating an RF signal miming lightning strikes. The onboard MCP4725 is a 12-bit DAC from Microchip, and it is a precision output amplifier that allows you to achieve rail-to-rail analog output swing. The input and output data can be stored in the EEPROM of the DAC, which in turn enables you to hold the data during power-off time. This analog output of the DAC is then amplified over the MCP606, a CMOS operational amplifier from Microchip. The MCP606 is unity-gain stable with low offset voltage. It also includes rail-to-rail output swing capability. The analog output is then forwarded to the coil of an inductor.

The coil of an inductor mimics a lightning signal on a smaller range than the real lightning will usually do. Of course, the Thunder EMU Click is intended for testing and debugging purposes. No matter what, you can still mimic the different distances of the coming storm lightning. There are three buttons onboard labeled CLOSE, MID, and FAR, which represent mimicking close, mid-range, and far lightning. By combining FAR and MID pressed buttons together, you can select slow-timed lightning strike mode (every 5 minutes), MID and CLOSE together for fast-time lightning stroke mode (every 15 seconds), and all three together for random times lightning strike (from 30 seconds to 30 minutes). The actual "thunder" of this Click board™ can be "visible" over the red THUNDER ON LED.

Thunder EMU Click uses a standard 2-Wire I2C interface of the MCO4725 to communicate with the host MCU, supporting standard, fast, and high speeds up to 3.4Mbps. The I2C address can be selected over the ADDR SEL jumper. Pins CLS, MID, and FAR are connected to onboard buttons and have input functions. The LED is an output pin for the THUNDER ON LED.

This Click board™ can operate with either 3.3V or 5V logic voltage levels selected via the VCC SEL jumper. This way, both 3.3V and 5V capable MCUs can use the communication lines properly. Also, this Click board™ comes equipped with a library containing easy-to-use functions and an example code that can be used as a reference for further development.

SPECIFICATIONS