Lightning Killed my Tv and xbox. Pls advise.

[colinevan]

Not really having a good week and to top it off, Manchester had the mother of thunder and lightning the other night. Well just my luck it hit somewhere close and has frazzled my Tv, xbox and amazon fire stick.

Chatting to my neighbours and 2 have also got frazzled TV's and no internet or phone line.

I'm here to ask advice and am curious to know if this has happened to anyone else at all. I thought it was an old wives tale to unplug during a thunderstorm , alas I have some stuff thats ready for the bin now.

I have provisionally rang my home insurance provider to see if I am covered however they are being a little sketchy at the moment.

A quick google and it appears that lightning kills anything thats connected via hdmi. I also have some older ( old but gold ) Sony str db 940 amp and aging pioneer dvd player that are all connected via scart and co axial and they appear to be fine.

So far, I have a dead SOny tv, Xbox elite that powers on but red rings of death appear and I have a dead amazon fire stick .

Good fun, Not!

[bristolracer]

Having worked in telecoms/aerials for some years I have seen a telephone socket that was vapourized and a skybox scattered over a living room carpet in a dozen charred pieces.

If you do unplug make sure you disconnect all leads not just the power.

It's an upsetting thing to happen but in one of the cases above the house owner had a one inch gap right through his living room wall , you could see daylight through the gap running all the way from the chimney to the foundations below.
A few popped consumer goods is far better than a missing wall.

[AC43]

Happened to me in 2013.

Virgin replaced my box the next day for free.

I had an extended warranty on the TV from Richer sounds - they gave me a loaner and fixed the original one.

I claimed on the amp through contents insurance.

I had to stump up for the fried PCB in my alarm.

[mcflurry]

After my old flat mate got caught out, I bought something like these - under £10 for each set (telly, computer, clock/lights etc)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Masterplug-SRG62-MP-6-Gan...

[TonyRPH]

mcflurry said:

After my old flat mate got caught out, I bought something like these - under £10 for each set (telly, computer, clock/lights etc)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Masterplug-SRG62-MP-6-Gan...

In the majority of cases that won't protect against a lightning strike.

Lightning strikes tend to come through aerial cables most of the time.

And even if it did hit the mains, that Masterplug extension would be vapourised.

Those extension sockets are designed to protect against hefty surges off mains power only.

Having worked in the TV industry in SA for some 15 years or so, I've seen my fair share of video machines and TVs struck by lightning.

More often than not, the mains power supply acts as the ground path for the lightning, so unplugging from th emains does help, but as highlighted further up, unplugging the aerials / dishes is a far better option.

Edited by TonyRPH on Friday 16th September 16:07

[mcflurry]

TonyRPH said:

In the majority of cases that won't protect against a lightning strike.

Didn't know that - assumed the surge boxes would stop 99% of the issues.
What should one buy instead (aside from insurance lol) ?

[TonyRPH]

There's not a lot you can do apart from unplugging stuff during a storm.

Lightning has a *huge* amount of energy, and it's very difficult to dissipate it effectively (in domestic surroundings at least - electricity pylons seem to have ways of dealing with it).

When I used to put up TV aerials, we always ran a lightning conductor to a 3 foot long earth stake embedded into the ground, and I've still seen major damage from a strike, even with the earth stake.

[colinevan]

Just a quick update , insurance are settling as we speak.

I had a bit of a disappointment over the value to replace my £800 Sony that was 8 years old but in reality it was worthless . Settled st £479 for s replacement set so on the look out now.

Xbox and fire stick will also be replaced.

Thanks and interesting to hear how common this is, be careful peeps.

It's a shockingly bad way for a to to end its life.

Col.

[colinevan]

Just a quick update , insurance are settling as we speak.

I had a bit of a disappointment over the value to replace my £800 Sony that was 8 years old but in reality it was worthless . Settled st £479 for s replacement set so on the look out now.

Xbox and fire stick will also be replaced.

Thanks and interesting to hear how common this is, be careful peeps.

It's a shockingly bad way for a to to end its life.

Col.

[Smiler.]

Cascading surge protection on LV networks with a device at the main intake & local protection (adaptors or power bars) at point of use.

Protect telephone & cable TV lines etc at the incoming point & locally if possible.

Satellite & Aerial TV cabling is a bit more tricky. Surge arrestors are available but if a direct strike, will likely just disintegrate.

As Tony said, unplugging is the best protection but not much used if you've nipped down the pub.

[Salesy]

I did a job where one of my customers got hit, every TV and other electricals got fried except for the lounge. Surge protector extension lead the the telephone, sky and power cables all ran through. Think it was a MONSTER one from memory. Worth every penny in my book and i now spec them on my AV installs.

[westom]

colinevan said:

A quick google and it appears that lightning kills anything thats connected via hdmi.

Lightning causes damage because you all but invited it inside to go hunting destructively for earth ground. Best protection inside is already inside all appliances. Once inside, no magic box will avert a hunt that can overwhelm existing and best possible protection.

You must connect a surge to earth BEFORE it can enter a building. You must discover the incoming path. HDMI is more often an outgoing path to earth. What wire entered without first connecting low impedance (ie less than 3 meters) to earth?

Antenna lead must drop down to make a low impedance (ie wire has no sharp bend) connection to same earth used by phone and AC electric. Master sockets once had this protection - no longer installed for free. Since that wire cannot connect directly to earth (like an antenna lead), then phone lines must connect low impedance via a protector.

Protectors do not do protection (despite what so many are told by advertising). Protectors that do not make a low impedance (ie less than 3 meter) connection to single point earth ground do not claim to protect from destructive surges. Do not 'layer' protection. And sometimes can make damage easier.

If any wire enters without that low impedance 'single point earth ground' connection, then you have only invited lightning inside to hunt destructively for earth ground.

Why did so many others have HDMI damage? They also did not have effective protection or foolishly relied on unplugging. What defines protection? Not any protector. Protector is only a connecting device to what averts HDMI damage: single point earth ground. No wall receptacle safety ground - earth ground. An electrode in earth.

Edited by westom on Thursday 22 September 00:29

[bristolracer]

HDMI is very sensitive to any voltage variations.

"Hotplugging" in other words plugging the items into each other with them both switched on can blow the boards connected to the sockets.
Many hdmi matrix manufacturers will not warranty items they know to have been treated so.

I have seen TVs and AV amps with blown sockets from mis treatment.

[OldGermanHeaps]

Just had a nasty lightning strike at a job in killearn, caused thousands of pounds of damage to most of the electronics in the property, the owner had good insurance though so they paid up quickly on receipt of my report.
When it strikes a sheltered housing complex the miles of data cabling acts as an aerial, damage can get to 5 figures easily.
There are lightning protection devices you can fit but it gets pricey for what should be maybe a once in a lifetime event.

Blew the sides of the socket across the room, vaporised copper coming from loads of devices.

Edited by OldGermanHeaps on Wednesday 21st September 19:47

[westom]

OldGermanHeaps said:

There are lightning protection devices you can fit but it gets pricey for what should be maybe a once in a lifetime event.

Protection from direct lightning strikes is so routine that nobody would even know a surge existed. Even a protector remains functional for decades. And costs about £1 per protected appliance.

However that damage is too great to be lightning energy. Something with many times more energy is necessary to create that damage. Colin Bayliss describes it in his book "Transmission & Distribution Electrical Engineering":

said:

Although lightning strikes have impressive voltage and current values (typically hundreds to thousands of kV and 10-100 kA) the energy content of the discharge is relatively low and most of the damage to power plant is caused by 'power follow-through current'. The lightning simply provides a suitable ionized discharge path.

An investigation to find that human created defect starts with the 'primary' protection layer. Apparently a 'secondary' protection layer was also compromised or never installed.

Edited by westom on Thursday 22 September 13:33

[TonyRPH]

westom said:

Protection from direct lightning strikes is so routine that nobody would even know a surge existed. Even a protector remains functional for decades. And costs about £1 per protected appliance.

However that damage is too great to be lightning energy. Something with many times more energy is necessary to create that damage. Colin Bayliss describes it in his book "Transmission & Distribution Electrical Engineering":

Colin Bayliss said:

Although lightning strikes have impressive voltage and current values (typically hundreds to thousands of kV and 10-100 kA) the energy content of the discharge is relatively low and most of the damage to power plant is caused by 'power follow-through current'. The lightning simply provides a suitable ionized discharge path.

An investigation to find that human created defect starts with the 'primary' protection layer. Apparently a 'secondary' protection layer was also compromised or never installed.

I would disagree that the energy of the discharge is relatively low...

And 'power follow through current'? When a tree in the middle of nowhere is struck by lightning, there's nothing else but the energy from the lightning to provide any "follow through current".

From: https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id...

van.physics.illinois.edu said:

The energy of an average 3 mile-long lightning strike is one billion to ten billion joules. To keep a 100-watt light bulb going for one second, one hundred joules of energy will be used. With one billion joules, the light bulb will be lit for 116 days

From: http://www.physics.org/facts/toast-power.asp

www.physics.org said:

Finally, much of the lightning bolt’s energy goes into heating the surrounding air to temperatures greater than the surface of the Sun. So even if you managed to overcome the problems of collecting, storing and converting the energy from the lightning to make it useful, you would still only be harnessing a small proportion of the lightning bolt’s power.

There is little that can be done to avoid destruction from a lightning strike.

Having lived in a place where quite violent thunderstorms were the norm, I have witnessed the destructive power of lightning first hand.

[interstellar]

Last week we had an epic storm here in Dorset. Never heard thunder or seen lightening like it in my lifetime nor my neighbours and they are in their 60's!

I don't think we were struck but something happened as it fried most peoples routers in our street. Lightening activity I guess, not sure.

BT said our area were reporting a lot of it and they would replace all routers free of charge. It came 24 hours later.

[Le TVR]

westom said:

However that damage is too great to be lightning energy. Something with many times more energy is necessary to create that damage. Colin Bayliss describes it in his book "Transmission & Distribution Electrical Engineering": [quote] Although lightning strikes have impressive voltage and current values (typically hundreds to thousands of kV and 10-100 kA) the energy content of the discharge is relatively low and most of the damage to power plant is caused by 'power follow-through current'.

Negative Lightning:

90-95% of all strikes
300,000,000 Volts
30,000 AMPS
50,000° Hot

Positive Lightning:

5-10% of all strikes
1,000,000,000 volts
300,000 AMPS
50,000° Hot but last 10 times longer.

And that is enough to raise the effective ground potential locally and inject a voltage spike into everything connected via a surge arrestor.

I have significant surge and ESD protection but I have still lost every piece of equipment powered by an SMPS! (Direct hit on a telegraph pole 50m from the house)

[Morningside]

My sister lives at the corner of a field and has been hit countless times. Last one destroyed nearly all the electrical appliances in the house and there was a scorch mark under the carpet where the TV coax was.

To top it all the lightning hit the side of the house and blew the radiator off the wall.

She now has roof mounted lighting conductors.

[irocfan]

colinevan said:

Just a quick update , insurance are settling as we speak.

I had a bit of a disappointment over the value to replace my £800 Sony that was 8 years old but in reality it was worthless . Settled st £479 for s replacement set so on the look out now.

Xbox and fire stick will also be replaced.

Thanks and interesting to hear how common this is, be careful peeps.

It's a shockingly bad way for a to to end its life.

Col.

glad to hear it's been sorted - but isn't this a good advert for getting a "new for old" policy?