June 22, 201115 yr Ok. A bit drastic of a title. We just had a sever storm pass though lightning took out the transformer out back and the wind knocked over a few large trees. I was right in the middle of a parity check with repair on to fix some errors Needless to say I heard the alarm on the UPS's go off. Then the servers and desktop started to all cleanly shutdown as they should. I think that was a wise investment right about now.
June 22, 201115 yr Yeah, I need this. Especially in the summer time, when electrical storms and brown outs are prevalent. Would just be nice to have some peace of mind.
June 23, 201115 yr Author It was definatly a lightning strike. After 16 hourds of no power. It came back on and the damage tally was... A cisco router, 2 PC's and a flatscreen TV. no data loss. the pc's were backed up.
June 23, 201115 yr Ok. A bit drastic of a title. We just had a sever storm pass though lightning took out the transformer out back and the wind knocked over a few large trees. I was right in the middle of a parity check with repair on to fix some errors Needless to say I heard the alarm on the UPS's go off. Then the servers and desktop started to all cleanly shutdown as they should. I think that was a wise investment right about now. A good power supply and a good UPS can save a life!
June 23, 201115 yr It was definatly a lightning strike. After 16 hourds of no power. It came back on and the damage tally was... A cisco router, 2 PC's and a flatscreen TV. Ouch! The cost of UPS seems small in comparison! However, a decent surge suppressor, or even an AVR, would give some protection at significantly lower cost.
June 23, 201115 yr It was definatly a lightning strike. After 16 hourds of no power. It came back on and the damage tally was... A cisco router, 2 PC's and a flatscreen TV. Ouch! The cost of UPS seems small in comparison! However, a decent surge suppressor, or even an AVR, would give some protection at significantly lower cost. I'll not argue the point, but a direct lightning strike is almost impossible to protect against. The surge protector will help IF the difference in voltages across the AC line to ground exceeds 300 volts or so, but will do absolutely nothing to help when the difference in induced voltage is across the LAN wiring. That is what happens when you have a close strike. Then you have the cat5 at several thousand volts (or more) and the AC line at ground, and the router and PCs in between with sensitive electronics getting zapped. It is nearly impossible for consumer electronics to deal with that torture. It would be perfectly fine if all the lines to the PC were at the same lightning induced 1000 volt potential, but to do that requires all the lines to the PC, power, phone, LAN, audio, USB all to go through the same ground window and ALL be clamped by surge suppressors to the same ground reference. Joe L.
June 23, 201115 yr It was definatly a lightning strike. After 16 hourds of no power. It came back on and the damage tally was... A cisco router, 2 PC's and a flatscreen TV. Ouch! The cost of UPS seems small in comparison! However, a decent surge suppressor, or even an AVR, would give some protection at significantly lower cost. I'll not argue the point, but a direct lightning strike is almost impossible to protect against. Sure, but the fact that, as far as I understand, some PCs and servers survived, suggests to me that the damage may have been caused by an AC line-borne surge. I don't know where Johnm is located but, for most of us, direct strikes are relatively rare. We had one a couple of weeks back which was only a couple of hundred metres away. My RCD tripped (suggesting some induced current, in excess of 30mA - obviously I have no idea of the associated voltage - within my own house wiring), but we suffered no apparent damage. All my delicate equipment is connected through surge suppressors.
June 23, 201115 yr It was definatly a lightning strike. After 16 hourds of no power. It came back on and the damage tally was... A cisco router, 2 PC's and a flatscreen TV. Ouch! The cost of UPS seems small in comparison! However, a decent surge suppressor, or even an AVR, would give some protection at significantly lower cost. I'll not argue the point, but a direct lightning strike is almost impossible to protect against. Sure, but the fact that, as far as I understand, some PCs and servers survived, suggests to me that the damage may have been caused by an AC line-borne surge. I don't know where Johnm is located but, for most of us, direct strikes are relatively rare. We had one a couple of weeks back which was only a couple of hundred metres away. My RCD tripped (suggesting some induced current, in excess of 30mA - obviously I have no idea of the associated voltage - within my own house wiring), but we suffered no apparent damage. All my delicate equipment is connected through surge suppressors. Even a not-so-close strike may induce voltage on long lengths of wires. The surge protector will keep common mode voltages on the AC line from doing much harm, but it will have absolutely no effect if the LAN has 10,000 volts induced on it. (rather, it might actually hurt, as the 10,000 volts on the LAN will have an easy way to get to ground... unfortunately, through your network interface chipset, through your power supply, and to ground through your surge protector's MOV's)
June 23, 201115 yr I have nearly every piece of electronics in my house covered with a surge protector or a battery backup. I had my big screen and 27-inch flat screen sony go out one lightning storm. I wasn't happy none the less.
June 23, 201115 yr I have nearly every piece of electronics in my house covered with a surge protector or a battery backup. I had my big screen and 27-inch flat screen sony go out one lightning storm. I wasn't happy none the less. Did the coax feeding their antenna also go through its surge protector? If not, the coax could be at one potential and the AC line another, and the lightning induced high voltage ends up across the TV. Joe L.
June 23, 201115 yr Here in florida you can get meter based surge protection. The power company removes the electric meter, puts a surge protector in and mounts the meter in that. I lost quite a bit one time in an bad storm one year...I can't plug my Stove, A/C ect into surge protectors and they all have sensitive electronics in them these days. So meter is level 1 protection, outlet based surge are level 2 and level 3 which i have not implimented yet is UPS which i need for the new unraid server. I am afraid to even put the parity drive in with how often the light flash here in summer.
June 23, 201115 yr I have nearly every piece of electronics in my house covered with a surge protector or a battery backup. I had my big screen and 27-inch flat screen sony go out one lightning storm. I wasn't happy none the less. Did the coax feeding their antenna also go through its surge protector? If not, the coax could be at one potential and the AC line another, and the lightning induced high voltage ends up across the TV. Joe L. Joel L. You are probably 100% on the money as for the reason it failed. It cost me a small fortune and months of saving up, but in the end we upgraded. That reminds me I need to relocate my coax on my new gear to make sure that doesn't happen a second time.
June 23, 201115 yr I have nearly every piece of electronics in my house covered with a surge protector or a battery backup. I had my big screen and 27-inch flat screen sony go out one lightning storm. I wasn't happy none the less. Did the coax feeding their antenna also go through its surge protector? If not, the coax could be at one potential and the AC line another, and the lightning induced high voltage ends up across the TV. Joe L. Joel L. You are probably 100% on the money as for the reason it failed. It cost me a small fortune and months of saving up, but in the end we upgraded. That reminds me I need to relocate my coax on my new gear to make sure that doesn't happen a second time. There are surge protectors that allow you to connect the coax through them to the TV. That way, all the connections to the TV can stay (relatively) close to the same ground reference. If they ALL rise to 100,000 volts at the same time from an induced pulse from a close lightning strike, then no problem at all. In the same way there are some surge protectors that let you pass the LAN connection through them too. Unfortunately, it only takes 1 path that is not at the same potential to have a voltage across sensitive electronics. Sorry it cost you so much. New big-screen TV's are not inexpensive. When really bad storms are in my area, if I'm home, I unplug things. Joe L. Joe L.
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