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What's the best way to protect your gear from lightning?

tobyj17

tobyj17

Comfortably Numb
As it's storming away here, I'm curious.. How does everyone protect their stuff from a potential lightning strike?

Me, I have a surge protector, but really don't trust it.. so I turn the switch off. It's a PITA to get to where it's plugged in.. otherwise i'd do that. I don't have any external antennas to worry about, so I'm good there.

Anything I should be doing different?
 
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Unplugging is really the only positive way to avoid a lightning strike...Sooner or later, you WILL get zapped, otherwise.
 
Sandy G said:
Unplugging is really the only positive way to avoid a lightning strike...Sooner or later, you WILL get zapped, otherwise.
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He could always blow the breaker to it, that may be easier than unplugging it. Invest in good power conditioners, surge protectors, and other energy protection related gear, and for the crazy afraid, get yourself a nice grounding rod installed on the house :) My school uses 3 inch thick stainless rod with 4/0 cable to earth where a 8 foot 2inch (might be one) thick copper rod is rammed in.... Given the copper broke and we all got hit by a strike, I was listening to music through my computer and got zapped in the ear. A co-worker got hit in her ear too, but through the phone, the resulting muscle spasm sent her flying across the office in her rolly chair lol. Everything was buzzing with electricity and the filing cabinets were arching across to one another... scary as HELL! use protection kids! lol
 
The breaker is in the basement, even harder to get to than the plug..

Years ago I had a computer that was hit through the phone line...I wasn't home to unplug it, and it blew every cap off of every board inside.. it was pretty neat to see.. crappy for the computer though!
 
Have dealt with many lightening-related problems with both audio and enterprise-level computer gear across the past 3-4 decades. Here's what I learned:

- Unplugging only the AC cord isn't good enough if you still have the gear connected to cable TV, phone or any grounding systems. The only way to ensure the electronic device isn't damaged by a lightening strike is to have all cables disconnected from anything else it is connected to.

- Speaking of lightening strikes, damage will occur even if the strike takes place a long way away. Lightening energy can come into your house on the very grounding system the house has to keep it out! See item 1 above. It can also enter on the phone lines and cable lines, too. Each is an opportunity for damage to your gear.

- False hope - Surge protectors will not save you: Given the item above, any sort of surge protector is not inviolate and will fail just like the other devices. Depending on any sort of gear marketed to 'save' your equipment cannot really do so if the grounding system is compromised.

- Damage will not necessarily be evident when the lightening hits. Lightening energy, when it does come into contact with electrical gear, will exhibit all sorts of stress on the components. There are too many variables in play to accurately predict how this damage/stress will manifest itself. It may days or weeks before a stressed device finally fails after the storm has long-dissipated or moved past.

- Fickleness: After a lightening strike, a cabinet containing multiple pieces of gear or, in a computer, a series of boards plugged together, random boards will fail (see #3 above) in random order and in random time. You cannot predict nor, in the case of multiple boards, can you know for certain that a device might not fail again but in a different part of the circuit or board.

- Don't rush to file a claim: See items #3 and #4 above for why.

Bottom line: Unplug everything from each other and from all entry points in the residence for maximum safety - this includes the surge protectors so they don't get hit, too.

Cheers,

David
 
Proof positive that surge protectors don't do much of anything...I saw 26 fried HT receivers/amps at the stereo tech's place today. Almost all were plugged into surge protectors or power units.
 
I use surge protectors but always unplug if I know a storm is on the way, if I go away for a few days I unplug too.
 
There isn't a surge protector made that will save your equipment. Unplugging is the only sure way to make sure lightening doesn't harm the equipment.

Do you have any switched wall outlets? If you don't this could be a fairly easy solution if you can find someone to rewire one of your outlets.
 
You could also install a lightening rod setup on your house. There aren't too many people that do it anymore but can be very good prevention. I've been thinking about doing it myself.

I don't know if it would protect your equipment 100% but could protect your home from other damage.

http://lightningrods.com/diagrams.php
 
I don't have any switched wall outlets, the only switches in the AC line are the breaker and the power strip switch. I now know that the power strip switch isn't enough. Time to make that outlet accessible.

The thing that really scares me now is the fact that the power from the lightning strike can travel so far.. I live on top of a bluff, with four super tall towers less than 1/4 mile away from my house. (Cell, US coastguard, radio repeater, TV towers) Those are grounded, but they're powered by the same power line that powers my house..Not sure if it could travel down that, but I'm sure it's possible...It is a power line.

Thanks for the suggestions so far everyone..I'm going to look into that lightning rod thing Denny..
 
tobyj17 said:
As it's storming away here, I'm curious.. How does everyone protect their stuff from a potential lightning strike?

Me, I have a surge protector, but really don't trust it.. so I turn the switch off. It's a PITA to get to where it's plugged in.. otherwise i'd do that. I don't have any external antennas to worry about, so I'm good there.

Anything I should be doing different?
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Okay, doom and gloom.

First you can't always BE home when mother nature strikes. With that in mind use a surge protector. My first experience was a customer coming back into our store holding a surge protector by it's tail (cord of course). Lighting had struck the prior evening about a mile or so from his office. When he tested the components individually everything worked without fail or issue and no complaints months later. My manager gave him one gratis in exchange for his, which we of course kept around for "why you should own a surge protector". That was when I worked for RS.

Second event, not lightening related. Car severed a pole (killing both occupants) and sending a surge down stream. Next morning I woke up to the dreaded smell of electrical burning. Sure enough everything was down, computers, receivers (standby mode) and equipment upstairs as well. Luckily we had 3 fried surgeprotectors and today, roughly 1 year later, all our equipment is still functioning fine.

Be smart or be stupid, it's your equipment. When I'm home and a storm comes everything gets shut down safely and then unplugged. No exception, well maybe the clock, coffee maker, etc.

It's not all doom and gloom, however, the closer the strike or the more powerful the strike the less chance of survival. When picking surge protectors make sure the rating is the fastest possible and make bloody sure they handle brownouts. That's your next worry. When you see lights flicker that's part of a brownout. A brownout detector shuts down the instant voltage drops below roughly 90vac, varies some.

And finally, when the lights that tell you the condition of the surge protector is questionable or not functioning GET RID OF THE BLOODY THING!
 
Power conditioners and surge suppressors for lightning protection? Dream on my friend. Best you can do is look into what Denny suggested. You can make sure your electrical system is properly grounded first off, and then you can augment that system as much as you can afford... Or don't worry about it.
 
DENNYDOG said:
You could also install a lightening rod setup on your house. There aren't too many people that do it anymore but can be very good prevention. I've been thinking about doing it myself.

I don't know if it would protect your equipment 100% but could protect your home from other damage.

http://lightningrods.com/diagrams.php
Click to expand...

IME, this will help divert electrical energy from a direct strike and might help dissipate that energy assuming the earth and grounding system is able to absorb it and all the joints in the grid's wiring is well-done.

What it will _not_ help with is lightening energy entering the residence from cable TV, phone or power wiring. This is where the lightening energy is carried into the residence from some other place. With direct strikes, pretty much all bets are off even with a grounded grid system as the link indicates.

To Copa's point, I don't mean to sound alarmist or a doomsayer but feel I am a bit of a realist. I have had to pick up after too many lightening strikes when I worked as a computer repair guy - the big computers at that - through the 80s and into the 90s throughout the southeast part of the US - major lightening country. Have the war-stories to prove it, too.

Most of my accounts that were big and rich enough had switching systems that got their computers off the public power company's grids and onto locally-powered generators. They had lightening radar systems and procedures in place to get off the grid when lightening was known to be hitting the ground within a 50 mile radius. They would stay on generators until the front/storms had passed to beyond 50 miles down from the plant. In this way, they kept running. Still, that didn't keep peripherals wired into other buildings on the campus from being damaged in close strikes.

Cheers,

David
 
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We get quite a few thunderstorms here in Oklahoma. I unplug the power strip for my system during periods of high electrical activity, or when I'll be out of the house when there is a storm predicted. Same for computers, my LCD TV, etc. I have them all on power strips with surge protection, but I know nothing will block a direct strike.
 
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kcollins4 said:
Power conditioners and surge suppressors for lightning protection? Dream on my friend. Best you can do is look into what Denny suggested. You can make sure your electrical system is properly grounded first off, and then you can augment that system as much as you can afford... Or don't worry about it.
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it's not possible to ground for that kind of surge, period. I'm speaking from experience not literature. I don't dream on, my equipment has survived surges thanks to protectors. Have I been lucky? Of course I have. Had the strikes been closer the only thing to save my equipment would have been unplugging them, which I clearly stated.
 
DENNYDOG said:
You could also install a lightening rod setup on your house. There aren't too many people that do it anymore but can be very good prevention. I've been thinking about doing it myself.

I don't know if it would protect your equipment 100% but could protect your home from other damage.

http://lightningrods.com/diagrams.php
Click to expand...

I would be wary of using ground rods to protect your equipment for lightning unless it's for antennas or you don't have the 3-prong grounding system.

If you have the 3-prong plug and then you don't need a ground rod for your equipment. If you have old equip with no 3rd prong then use a powerstrip. If you have an outside antenna on the roof with a metal mast then it needs to be grounded. All feedline needs to be grounded too.

Additionally, the rod will need to be bonded to the main electrical service ground rod. If you you don't bond all of the ground rods together then you will have a differences in voltage potential among your grounds, rendering your grounding system worthless.

Plus it's the code. Nothing is easy is it? :sigh:
 
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