At 09:05 PM 4/10/2007, Steve Rigby wrote:
On Apr 10, 2007, at 7:50 PM, Tom Piwowar wrote:
Once an hour at the Franklin Institute. I wonder if they still do this?
I lost a bunch of stuff from a lightning hit. It took out a
computer, which was unplugged and disconnected from the telephone
line, buy entering via the audio inputs and outputs which I had
connected to audio gear. I also lost a couple of channels in my
audio mixer, and some audio processing stuff at the same time, as
well as other electronic items. That was not my first time losing
stuff to lightning either. No type of surge protection can ever
guard against such power. You gotta unplug it all when those
storms come unless you are ready to pay the price, and that season
will soon be upon us again.
Things are better in cities because there are good
grounds--everything is grounded, particularly in modern construction
or high rises.
The worst is in the country near the end of the power line. Then even
well-grounded electromechanical things (like the well pump) can be burned out.
Replace your surge arresters from time to time. The diodes fail in a
cumulative manner (a little weaker with each surge), and they fail in
such a manner as to fail to block the surge.
Nothing will protect against a direct strike of lightening. I think
it takes 30,000 volts to jump a spark through one inch of air and the
lightning has gone thousands of feet. The theory of the lightning rod
is that you provide good paths to ground. There is some question as
to how effective lightning rods are in normal installations.
I hear contradictory stories about whether underground lines are more
or less susceptible to strikes. I think it depends on the soil. The
people who told me they are less susceptible were here in the east
with sandy, loamy soils. The people who told me more susceptible were
in an area with very rocky soil and lots of exposed bedrock.
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