With another series of thunderstorms predicted (we love them !) am I being over cautious in powering down my laptop and monitor ?
On the basis I have had a laptop "blow" in a thunderstorm but it was a work one, so no loss to me :) However, now I have to suffer the loss, so am a little more aware. It was on at the time.
I also had an LCD monitor "blow" during a power outage. Again, it was on at the time.
Also, would there be any risk to tablet computers ? I don't recall there ever being a warning that mobile phones could be damaged and a tablet is really just a bigger mobile ?
Obvious a direct strike will fry anything. But I am thinking of a nearby
*huge* bolt ...
On a separate note, I wonder how the detector stations that the lightning maps sites use are all connected ?
If the tablet is off-leash, it's as safe as the SmartPhone.
You should take precautions according to site history.
If you've had equipment damaged before, then you might consider some strategic steps when the pest is nearby.
If the storm track and external evidence indicates it's headed over my place, I shut down computers and disconnect ADSL RJ11 cable. I use the switch on the UPS to disconnect UPS from mains, which is really little in the way of protection. But the plug is too hard to get to, to be unplugging it every time that it was needed, so I use the switch on the UPS instead.
If you have a significant sum invested in electronics, like an "AV rack/home theater", you might consider a double-conversion UPS to protect it. The advantage of a double-conversion UPS, is any line transient is stopped at the battery in the UPS. The output of the UPS, the inverter runs continuously, making smooth power at all times. Some of the cheaper UPS, they can "magnify" a transient and make it worse (even with surge protection on output).
But there's still the risk of induced voltage in long network cables and the like, for bolts that strike within a hundred feet of you. Or ball lightning coming through a wall and "touching" something which doesn't even have wires to "attract" it. We could say, practically speaking, a SmartPhone is "bulletproof", except when the right bullet hits it.
And there are lightning bolts, with 10X the energy of other bolts in a storm. While it may appear during a storm, that "one size fits all", the storm is allowed to have the occasional "super-bolt".
You're being far more cautious than me, I don't turn off or unplug anything during a thunderstorm, pre-VDSL the line would drop during storms, now I can watch blitzortung
On or off, will make little or no difference. Connected to the mains, or a wired LAN, the risk is much increased due to surges on the wires from a local strike.
In article <rd2dht$q32$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, Jethro_uk <jethro snipped-for-privacy@hotmailbin.com writes
Add to that your router. Anything plugged in to mains is potentially at risk especially if you are supplied by overheads from your step down transformer. Substations are well protected. Surge protection is always advisable.
I've had stuff partially killed by near by lightning but all damage, apart from an ADSL filter, has been to LAN or telephone line ports. ie the tiny transformers or coupling capacitors vapourised. So that port no longer function but the rest of the kit does. On the basis that we have not had anything mains side die I reckon the damage comes from induced voltages in the LAN/telephone wiring.
If I'm about and a storm is 10 or so miles away and heading our direction I'll unplug the telephone line from the system but half the reason for that is to stop the electrical noise and resyncs pushing the sync connection rate down. The other half is the PITA that a blown port creates.
Doesn't have to be a *huge* bolt to fry LAN ports etc, bog standarad strike within a few hundred yards can do it.
Blitzortung via the recivers host internet connection.
I've only lost a "dial up" modem during a thunderstorm - and that was 28 years ago. However, I was looking after the lighting at my daughter's school about the same sort of time and the school was struck. Both the control board and the dimmer racks died. Luckily hired, not my own.
Seconded. I have had (and helped others who have had) telephone line connected kit taken out. I had two fairly decent answering machines go in two storms and DECT bases. Lots of people used to loose dial-up modems and now it's ADSL modem-routers.
I think I've dealt with (mine and for others) more mains powered kit damaged by random / local outages than from storms.
Our telephone is delivered via a pole but our BB is underground cable so if it looks like a storm is very close and active I might (if I remember) pull the main telephone lead out off the main socket.
Quite.
Being a 'Datacomms tech' I've had to deal with the consequences of voltage induced damage over a long time, in fact my first day, planed to be a look around and being introduced to the other staff changed to me walking in at 9am and being bundled straight off to Luton airport as most of their cross-site comms had gone down during a bad lightening storm. Used up all my line driver and opto-isolator chips, even after robbing them from the spare kit I took with me. ;-)
I lost a serial/parallel interface card, a TV some CMOS chips in a record deck a modem, and a laser printer and a socket blown out of the wall and the entire overhead telephone line when direct strike hit, back in the 80s.
Surge arrestor? Don't make me larf. NOTHING withstands a direct strike, and I had holes in my carpets where I had run lighting flex underneath and had other cables on top.
House was rewired to satisfy insurers.
really almost nothing is safe of its plugged in to almost anything. Netgear routers died or went 'strange' after thunderstorms with monotonous regularity.
I generally do if I can tell a thunderstorm is coming.
The only thing I have personally lost to a thunderstorm was a fried modem. At work a direct hit took down the mainframe terminal adapters despite them being notionally protected by a chunky looking lightning protection system. The protection devices saved themselves by allowing more expensive delicate components to be fried.
Things that are delicate and attached to the mains when a spike occurs. If you are out of luck anything plugged into the mains might suffer.
We have overhead mains feeds so a thunderstorm almost invariably means a powercut as well - likewise for strong winds.
Induced currents in antennae could perhaps cause trouble.
If you are worried just unplug the cables, like the network and mains until its all over. Obviously power spikes or outages can make a part which might be not well specified die and take the rest of the unit with it. I had an amplifier that did that, but often its the design. I lost a fax machine to nearby lightening once, the guy from Samsung told me that they did not bother to normally fit protection on UK models, as they never have bad enough storms... except of course when we do! Brian
I have a long wire aerial here, and have thus far been lucky. I did fit a resistor though, since when I did not back in the mists of time the induced voltages crackled from the wire to anything nearby which was earthed, and I think that in these days of delicate mosfets, one needs to be a bit more careful. Valves seemed immune. Brian
We can't always all protect against everything, but a decent UPS with surge protection for the phone line and all connected devices might be a good place to start?
When I was a Datacomms Tech we had a guy come in from Israel with a demo rig showing how his 'solution' worked where std solutions didn't.
It had the ability to generate a high voltage to simulate the lightening and you pressed a button to discharge that though the electronics input, typically killing it.
He then applied his solution, replaced the chip, pressed the button and demonstrated the chip was still working.
The problem was, whilst it might have worked on that specific demo setup, there was no guarantee it would actually work in enough cases in the real world (or I'm guessing he would be very rich and we would all know of him by now)?
I think the problem with lightening, direct or induced is the rise time is so short, there isn't anything that can react fast enough, especially to protect 'sensitive' kit.
eg, You can use a non linear resistor to clamp a power line long enough to trip it's fuse (so it protects the generation / distribution kit) but I'm not sure it would prevent those spikes getting though to us?
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.