General > General Technical Chat
Heard popping sound and saw a flash after a thunder strike near my equipment
Cyberdragon:
--- Quote from: Syntax Error on May 22, 2020, 12:01:57 am ---From an early age I was taught to always unplug the TV coax when a storm was close - always! Possibly my first ever electrics lesson? These days, if we're expecting a direct hit, I'll take out the DSL cable. Online storm tracking makes prediction so easy, but it doesn't beat DFing a storm with a long wave radio, old skool.
@FlevasGR <- did you smell anything like strong ozone or an electrical component had overheated?
Another remote possibility, ball lightning came to play.
--- End quote ---
Could also have been St. Elmo's fire arcing off of something, basically just stray EHT static that made it into the house.(it can manifest as mini-lightning bolts not just little fizzy corona discharge). If it was ball lightning, the equipment was damn lucky to have survived (it's usually pretty nasty).
Berni:
Yep sounds like spark gaps or MOVs inside your equipment, surge protectors, extension cords...etc might have sacrificed themselves to protect your gear.
You can count yourself being lucky since with a lot of serious lighting strikes these protection devices tend to just limit the extent of the damage rather than prevent it completely, large ethernet installations are particularly vulnerable. I would definitely have a check on what is left of those surge protectors, or just play it safe and buy brand new surge protectors to plug your stuff into.
But yeah lighting can easily produce transients of voltage high enough to jump across switches in the off position, so just flipping a switch is not guaranteed to stop it (But still will stop it in a lot of cases). I personally don't switch anything off in a lightning storm and yeah lost some stuff to lightning but never anything major (Apart from the rather expensive heatpump that blew its VFD module that can't be unplugged anyway since its directly wired in)
Syntax Error:
Yes, ball lightning is a bit dramatic, but I agree St Elmos fire is a likely suspect for the unexplained electrical phenomina. Any cyborgs seen walking around the neighbourhood?
Spark gaps only work if there is a potential difference across the gap. In the case of telephone wires, the transient current from a local lightning strike has a habit of running along both the A and B wires, so Vdiff is close to zero. Thus destroying what ever, or who ever, is on the other side of the 'drop wire'.
mikeselectricstuff:
As well as any surge protection devices, it could also be caps in input filters that got damaged, which would also not stop the equipment working
engrguy42:
--- Quote from: mikeselectricstuff on May 22, 2020, 10:32:35 am ---As well as any surge protection devices, it could also be caps in input filters that got damaged, which would also not stop the equipment working
--- End quote ---
Unless they got shorted by the voltage spike...which might cause the input fuse to blow...which would mean the equipment won't turn on...
Or maybe the components shorted then blew up real quick, causing an open circuit...and the fuse didn't have time to blow.
Or maybe the components have MOV's in parallel, and the MOV's handled the spike...or maybe they shorted first... but that would mean the fuse would blow...unless it didn't have time....
The list of hypotheticals goes on for miles... :D :D
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