Lightning Killed my Tv and xbox. Pls advise.

Lightning Killed my Tv and xbox. Pls advise.

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westom

25 posts

159 months

Thursday 22nd September 2016
quotequote all
TonyRPH said:
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".
Sugars in a struck tree create most damage. Research from Alan Taylor of the US Forestry Service demonstrated that most trees (over 95%) suffer no appreciable damage due to direct lightning strikes. Only the exception is cited by one who used observation as if knowledge. We were all taught in primary school science that observation alone is classic junk science. Junk science reasoning assumes all struck trees have that much damage. Instead, learn from people who actually study all direct strikes.

Meanwhile trees are not structures. Topic is protection of appliance in structures - not trees in a wilderness. Please also cite relevant examples.

Direct lightning strikes without damage is routine. Protection means energy discharges elsewhere. Your numbers obfuscate that reality.

A protector adjacent to an appliance must either 'block' or 'absorb' a surge. That means energy at that point (of a maybe seven mile electrical connnection) is high and destructive inside. Energy (and voltage) increases as necessary to blow through an expensive and bogus protector - that so many foolishly assume are best because they are so expensive.

Telephone switching computers suffer about 100 surges with every thunderstorm. How often is your town without phone service after every storm? Four days while BT replaces that computer? Nonsense. Direct lightning strikes without damage is routine all over the world. Lightning damage to that computer does not happen after 100 surges. But they also do not used bogus solutions.

Professionals deny your overhyped numbers. Well proven protection is defined by people who do this stuff - so that direct lightning strikes cause no damage.

From Dr Martloff's 1979 IEEE paper is
said:
only 5% of all ground strokes exceed a peak current of 100 kA. The frequency of the strokes is dependent upon the geographic location (isokeraunic levels), as well as upon local configurations. The probably occurrence of a stroke involving the utility pole near a house with no adjacent tall trees of buildings is 1 per 400 years for most of the US. For a 5% probability, the likelihood can be reduced 20 times; in areas of high lightning activity, this likelihood can be reduced 10 times. A stroke exceeding 100 kA at one location, therefore can be expected to occur only once in 10,000 years.
His figure 8 then demonstrates how a rare 100,000 amps surge distributes with as much as 40,000 amps incoming to the house - during a surge that is rare.

Most surges are only about 20,000 amps. Well proven protection from direct lightning strikes is rated at least 50,000 amps. Because only scam (and much more expensive) protectors fail on a surge such as lightning.

IEEE Standard defines why effective (not expensive) protectors are so effective.
said:
a 99.5% protection level will reduce the incidence of direct strokes from one stroke per 30 years ... to one stroke per 6000 years
Martzloff in a 1980 IEEE paper:
said:
The probable occurrence of a stroke involving the utility pole near a house with no adjacent tall trees or buildings is 1 per 400 years for most of the U.S. For a 5% probability, the likelihood can be reduced 20 times; in areas of high lightning activity, this likelihood can be reduced 10 times. A stroke exceeding 100 kA at one location, therefore, can be expected to occur only once in 10,000 years.
And from his 1979 paper:
said:
First, the expectation of a 3 kV transient occurrence on a 120 V circuit ranges from 0.01 to 1 per year at a given location
Colin Bayliss' numbers are correct. You, on the other hand, assumed voltages in those 3 miles to earth also exist at the surface and in earth. A mistake commonly made when one forgets how electricity (and voltage) work.

Dr Standler (another industry guru) further explains protection from direct lightning strikes.
said:
It is important to remember that the arrester neither "arrests" nor stops the surge - an arrester only diverts surge current to ground, If the ground connection is missing or improperly installed, the arrest can not divert current to ground. Because the charge in lightning flows to ground, if these current do not reach ground through an arrester, then they will reach ground through a spark in air that can cause a fire, through a person using the telephone, or through a computer modem or facsimiles machine, and cause damage in the process. It is common for telephone experts to speak of "grounding the telephone", when a more precise phrasing would be "grounding the arrester".
Why expensive protectors permit damage. Expensive protectors have no earth ground. Those most commonly sold protectors do not even claim to protect from destructive surges. Then naive consumers assume nothing can protect from direct lightning strikes.

23 direct strikes annually to electronics atop the Empires State Building - without damage. And still the easily manipulated buy protectors that cost more money and do not claim to protect from lightning.

Those above pictures are classic when a 'primary' protection layer is missing AND a 'secondary' protection layer is not properly earthed. Those pictures demonstrate damage made possible because a human failed to install well proven solution. Proven by over 100 years of science and experience. Originally demonstrated by Dr Franklin in 1752.

And still nobody asks to learn. Instead so many cry, "Woe is me. Nothing can protect from lightning." Even though direct strikes without damage was routine over 100 years ago - even long before transistors existed.

So what happened when transistors appeared in the telephone networks. Anybody can read Bell System Technical Journal research even in the 1950s. They (ie Bodle) discovered existing protection from direct lightning strikes was even sufficient to protect transistors. And still so many believe urban myths promoted by near zero, obscenely profitable, and ineffective protector manufacturers.

One even wants to discuss trees when the topic is protection of appliances. OP had damage because he spent so much money on a Tripplite protector that does not even claim to protect from destructive surges. And did not have properly earthed protection from manufacturers that have integrity. Another suffered damage that is classic of a 'follow through current'. Since lightning does not have energy to create that much damage. Others here only want to argue rather than learn what was well understood even 100 years ago.


Edited by westom on Thursday 22 September 14:51

westom

25 posts

159 months

Thursday 22nd September 2016
quotequote all
Morningside said:
She now has roof mounted lighting conductors.
A Florida home suffered repeated lightning strikes to one wall. Eventually they installed lightning rods. Lightning struck that same wall again. Then people who know this stuff arrived.

Lightning struck a wall containing bathroom plumbing. Those pipes connected to more conductive soils beneath sand. Lightning rods were only earthed shallow in sand.

A lightning rod (like protectors) is only as effective as its earth ground. They drove longer ground rods into that more conductive (and deeper) soil. Then lightning stopped striking a bathroom wall.

No protector or lightning rod does protection. Protection is defined by what needs most attention - earthing electrodes.


TonyRPH

12,963 posts

167 months

Thursday 22nd September 2016
quotequote all
westom said:
<snip>

No protector or lightning rod does protection. Protection is defined by what needs most attention - earthing electrodes.
Which raises the point; any lightning strike will find the fastest route to (from?) ground.

In most homes in the UK, earth is wired to neutral, however it is also connected to water pipes as stipulated by electrical regulations.

So, a strike to a nearby telephone for example, will find it's way through any devices connected to the electrical system in the home, and then to earth, causing the damage pictured above.

However, many (if not all) modern UK homes use plastic water pipes, even outside, rendering the earth path ineffective.

It is not disputed that properly installed lightning conductors cannot dissipate the energy, but what is argued is that damage will almost universally be caused by a strike - unless - proper and adequate lightning conductors exist (in the right places) on a domestic property.

Earth stakes can also be rendered less effective by excessively dry ground / insufficient depth.



westom

25 posts

159 months

Friday 23rd September 2016
quotequote all
TonyRPH said:
Earth stakes can also be rendered less effective by excessively dry ground / insufficient depth.
If earth is too dry, then lightning is not striking earth.

Lightning is a connection from cloud to earthborne charges some 5 kilometers away. That shortest path is 3 kilometers down to earth and four kilometers through earth to those charges. If earth is too dry, then lightning need not strike earth.

Electrodes are made better by moisture. That is why a first meter in earth does so little. And why an electrode must be at least three meters.

If a surge is connected to earth, then a most critical item in any protection system is an earthing electrode. Not just any grounds. It must be single point earth ground. Most attention is focused there.




Edited by westom on Wednesday 28th September 04:08