BTD-350 Marine Thunderstorm Detector

The BTD-350 is a high-performance lightning detector designed for marine vessels, offshore installations and helidecks, providing early lightning warnings to support timely safety procedures while minimizing nuisance alarms. It detects cloud-to-cloud, cloud-to-ground, cloud-to-air and intra-cloud lightning up to 83 km away, while monitoring local electric field changes and charged precipitation.

Using a passive quasi-electrostatic principle, its three-antenna system detects low-frequency atmospheric electric field disturbances rather than man-made radio noise, ensuring strong electromagnetic interference immunity. It offers a false alarm rate below 2%, with 95% detection efficiency for a single flash and 99–99.9% for storms with multiple flashes within 56 km.

The BTD-350 supports RS422 serial and Ethernet connectivity, reporting self-test status, thunderstorm warnings, flash time, range and optional direction information. An optional relay module provides three volt-free contacts for caution, warning and alert states, while the optional direction-finding module identifies storm direction with 1° resolution. Users can configure warning thresholds and relay disable times to suit site requirements.

Built with reinforced stainless steel and powder-coated aluminium, the detector features IP66 protection and operates from −40 °C to +60 °C. It is designed to meet marine EMC, salt spray and vibration requirements. Supplied PC software enables real-time display and data logging for convenient monitoring and operational record-keeping.