On Jul 14, 21:40, Eric Chomko wrote:
> I've been accumulating the damages from a recent thunderstorm. Wow!
> Originally I thought
> it was just a GFI breaker and the phones. But it turns out that a
> computer got hit (just a PC),
> and the cable box as well as a TV. I'm making a list (8 entries so far).
> Thank God my bro-in-law
> here in Maryland gave me a surge supressor that I put on my SWTPC. Makes
> me think I need
> more of those things.
>
> Anyone else have such an event happen?
Yes, I've had it happen. Over here, the mains is usually fed from a
three-phase transformer, with every third house on the same phase. A few
years ago, I was watching the storm pass overhead (I like watching
lightning) when the house three along from me had a direct hit on their TV
aerial. There was a huge BANG!. The damage to their house was extensive:
part of the aerial was vapourised, a few other things melted, much of the
electrical equipment in the house was damaged in some way. Almost every
burglar alarm in the street went off, and two (on the same supply phase)
were wrecked.
I wasn't so badly off. The bang was so loud I'd jumped hard enough make a
picture fall off the wall. One monitor went bang and stopped working so I
pulled its plug. My alarm went off but I was able to reset it. When I'd
done that, I had a quick look round to see if anything was on fire, but
although a few things had obviously stopped working, nothing looked like it
needed immediate attention so I went to help the neighbours with their
alarm (there are two old couples whose houses I sometimes look after if
they're away). When I came back about an hour later I had a more thorough
look.
One of a pair of identical modems was fried; the other one was fine. The
cordless phone never worked again, but the answering machine on the same
line was apparently OK (though it never worked quite as well). The TV and
video both died. There was a strong burnt PCB smell in the lounge, which
turned out to be the remains of the satellite tuner, which was still
drawing power and slowly melting. The monitor that had gone bang was a
complete mess inside, and was a write-off, though the one next to it was
fine, as was the Acorn Archimedes it was connected to. A PDP-11/34 in the
garage had stopped, it turned out that the big input filter on the control
box had burnt out.
The TV company declared the video recorder to be irrepairable, and the
engineer who looked at the TV said it was rather black inside, but they
took it away and repaired it -- apparently they ended up changing almost
every board inside and it was ages before they brought it back (we had a
loan set in the meantime).
But if you're thinking of relying on surge suppressors to protect your
precious items from a lightning strike: _don't_. They're intended to
protect from the spikes induced by nearby lightning discharges, not a
direct hit or a strike that hits a nearby transformer or the supply. My
PDP-11 is the testament to that.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
Received on Sun Jul 15 2001 - 05:53:33 BST