Lightning Strike

[Peter W.]

A week ago, today (Thursday), our house was struck directly by lightning right about noontime. interesting that the lights did not even blink, however, there were consequences:
a) We lost our cable-modem and all three TV boxes.
b) We lost two older televisions - both protected by surge-protectors, but we expect that the damage was via the cable input, not the electrical input.
c) We lost four (4) local GFI receptacles - popped, but would not reset.
d) We lost all our Panasonic wireless phones - base and satellites.
e) We lost the (Dell) computer power-supply brick - on a surge-protected UPS, go figure. But not the computer, or the printer.

Our Utility (PECO) visited the following day, and spent nearly an hour at our house, checking the pole-pig, and remaking the bugs between the pig and the house for us and for our nearest neighbors. They also checked and verified the grounds three houses in both directions. Our electrician spent two hours checking the box and load-testing, as well as replacing the damaged GFI devices. He found (and replaced) one additional receptacle with a bad ground. Directly related? - unknown. Comcast replaced our modem and all our TV boxes the following morning, and Amazon supplied us with two new 'smart' televisions and phones for very nearly pocket-change, also by the following day.

All-in, the "spend" was well under US$1,000, considerably less than our insurance deductible. And no damage to the house at all. As it was built in 1890, I suspect that it has survived far worse.

Stuff happens.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

[Trevor Wilson]

**SNAP! Same thing happened to me on the 23rd December 2018. I put the
garbage bin on the street, next to the power pole outside my home. I
walked down the side passage and up the back steps. Hand on the back
door and BOOM! Scared the crap out of me. Lights went dead, TV off.
Checked the breaker box and, when I opened the box, bits of one of those
bakelite aluminium disk type power meters fell at my feet. No breaker
out. No power. Called my next door neighbour and hooked up the essential
stuff to his, still intact, power. Called my electricity supplier. Guy
turned up that evening. Informed me that both 'service fuses' (70 Amp -
2 phase) had failed and I needed to arrange for a level 2 electrician
(the grade above a regular electrician) to replace them (don't forget:
It is 230VAC per phase mains over here).

Level 2 electrician came over, replaced the ancient fuses and holders
with 100 Amp HRC types. $1,000.00.

Then I began to take stock of the damage. EVERYTHING connected to my
home network was fried. My 2 month old, $1,700.00 HP laptop, TV sets,
phone system, modem, printer and a bunch of other stuff. Insurance
covered everything, with a $1,000.00 deductible. I estimate that I lost
about $6,000.00 worth of stuff. Luckily my Rigol 'scope wasn't connected
to the computer.

Moral: Everything is wi-fi now. The lightning hit the 20 Metre tree in
my front yard. Killed the top half. If it had hit 15 seconds earlier, I
may have been injured by a tracer.

2 days before Christmas. YIKES! I reckon I could have had the electrical
work done for less than $300.00, if it had been at any other time of the
year.

[KenW]

Nothing survives a direct hit.


KenW

[Clifford Heath]

On 1/10/21 4:43 am, Peter W. wrote:
> A week ago, today (Thursday), our house was struck directly by lightning

> a) We lost our cable-modem and all three TV boxes.
> b) We lost two older televisions - both protected by surge-protectors, but we expect that the damage was via the cable input, not the electrical input.

> e) We lost the (Dell) computer power-supply brick - on a surge-protected UPS, go figure.

These three items point to a strike on the cable modem, spreading via
Ethernet wiring, and exiting by the house power, back to the street.

That happened to us 2 years ago, $10,000 in damage (covered). Better
grounding probably would have helped. Wifi would have helped too - but
it's not fast enough to get reasonable throughput to the NAS.

I think the right answer is to have the cable modem and WiFi on one
side, with any wired Ethernet completely air-gapped. No penalty as long
as the Wifi is as fast as our cable, which ours is.

Having one set of wiring coming into the house means a strike must exit
through local ground. Having two sets means it can come in one and exit
the other, dramatically increasing the catchment area for any strikes.

Clifford Heath

[Michael Terrell]

I had one hit the marsh behind my home in the mid '90s. I was inside my shop that had no windows, but it lit up thee inside. It caused a battery powered thermometer to explode, and killed my SVGA monitor that wasn't connected to anything. The video cable was coiled up around the base. The news reported over 1100 strikes in my area, in under a half hour.

I had the WACX TV mobile production unit at a telethon for a place for disabled children. We had loaned it to a low power non profit TV station to cover a marathon. They had a large party tent at the finish line, in front of their building. They had a platform for a camera operator, under it. He was about a foot away from one of the steel poles when lightning struck, out of a clear sky. It arced to his back, and knocked him down. It also caused every piece of equipment in the mobile unit to fail. It would have likely damaged their studio, if we hadn't used a video isolation network. That was about $50,000 worth of equipment.

The original WACX studio site was also hit. It took out the 1A2 phone system, the 11GHz CARS system that we used as a STL, along with the computer terminals. It fried all the LNAs on two dishes, along with some electrical damage. It also blew away part of the concrete wall of the building. It did major damage to the CATV system, as well but their manager loaned us a bucket truck to replace the LNAs even though their crew was working until dark to restore service.. The microwave link had to be returned to the factory for three weeks, as we tried to get by with a rented loaner. We ended up having to have a driver make a daily trip 30+ miles one way each day to deliver U-Matic tapes to the new Master Control at the new transmitter site.

Another strike hit the barn. It caused the TV antenna to explode, and got into the phone line. It took out the SLIC at the street and continued on into town to the CO. That 10 miles of copper was destroyed. It damaged a stereo and destroyed a C band satellite receiver.

There is a reason people use plastic pipe from their wells into their homes, in Florida.

I had just moved into this house in 1999 when lightning hit a tree in the Florida Greenbelt. It split the tree, and abot the top third fell to the ground. That strike took out a brand new 56K modem.

Lightning happens. :(

[Trevor Wilson]

**Wow! 56k. So fast. :-)

[Rob]

Stuff that is prepared for direct hits survives them just fine.
Of course it requires measures that are too expensive for the typical
(not highrise) house, but e.g. telecom towers often get hit several
times a year without any adverse effects.

[KenW]

Most of us can not afford a faraday cage.


KenW

[Rob]

So it should have been "nothing that most of us can afford survives a
direct hit".

[Michael Terrell]

On Friday, October 1, 2021 at 12:04:48 AM UTC-4, Trevor Wilson wrote:
>
> **Wow! 56k. So fast. :-)

It was, in 1999. Broadband didn't hit this area for another year or so. It was only 3 Gb/second when it did. Now, some parts of town offer 1Gb/second. on Fiber.

The kU band uplink that we built for the ISS in 2000, was 40Mb/second.

[Michael Trew]

As I understand, surge protectors are useless if the ground isn't
working connected properly.

[Michael Trew]

On 10/1/2021 11:57 AM, Michael Terrell wrote:
> On Friday, October 1, 2021 at 12:04:48 AM UTC-4, Trevor Wilson wrote:
>>
>> **Wow! 56k. So fast. :-)
>
> It was, in 1999. Broadband didn't hit this area for another year or so. It was only 3 Gb/second when it did. Now, some parts of town offer 1Gb/second. on Fiber.

I assume you mean 3 Mb/s broadband. That's what I have via AT&T DSL
now. The download isn't so bad.. the trouble is the 384K upload.

[Trevor Wilson]

**There. I fixed it for you.

[Phil Allison]

Trevor Wilson wrote:
=================

>
> > I had just moved into this house in 1999 when lightning hit a tree in the Florida Greenbelt.
> > It split the tree, and abot the top third fell to the ground.
> > That strike took out a brand new 56K modem.
> >
> > Lightning happens. :(
> >
> **Wow! 56k. So fast. :-)
>

** I well remember when 56K modems were the " ant's pants".
Slow jpegs, no video but OK for email & browsing text sites.

Quite astonishing they did that speed using nothing but one POTS voice circuit down miles of twisted pair.


....... Phil

[Rob]

Michael Trew <michae...@att.net> wrote:
> On 10/1/2021 11:57 AM, Michael Terrell wrote:
>> On Friday, October 1, 2021 at 12:04:48 AM UTC-4, Trevor Wilson wrote:
>>>
>>> **Wow! 56k. So fast. :-)
>>
>> It was, in 1999. Broadband didn't hit this area for another year or so. It was only 3 Gb/second when it did. Now, some parts of town offer 1Gb/second. on Fiber.
>
> I assume you mean 3 Mb/s broadband. That's what I have via AT&T DSL
> now. The download isn't so bad.. the trouble is the 384K upload.

Is that a posting from the previous decade that leaked in somehow?

My DSL is 170Mbps download, 30Mbps upload, and that is considered "slow"
here...

[Michael Terrell]

On Friday, October 1, 2021 at 8:58:26 PM UTC-4, Michael Trew wrote:
> On 10/1/2021 11:57 AM, Michael Terrell wrote:
> > On Friday, October 1, 2021 at 12:04:48 AM UTC-4, Trevor Wilson wrote:
> >>
> >> **Wow! 56k. So fast. :-)
> >

> > It was, in 1999. Broadband didn't hit this area for another year or so. It was only 3 Mb/second when it did. Now, some parts of town offer 1Gb/second. on Fiber.

> I assume you mean 3 Mb/s broadband. That's what I have via AT&T DSL
> now. The download isn't so bad.. the trouble is the 384K upload.

Yes. I don't sleep well anymore, ad I'm waiting for cataract surgery on both eyes so I miss some typos. I'm sitting less than eight inches from a 24 inch monitor to be able to read text.

[Michael Trew]

Comcast offers up to gigabit service in my area, but I don't care to pay
for it. I haven't canceled the DSL because AT&T has grandfathered it..
if I shut it down, I can't ever get it back, and I have a good deal.
Streaming on one device works OK, and you certainly don't need any
faster for e-mail or Usenet, unless uploading large attachments.

[Michael Trew]

Well, they are useful for connecting multiple appliances to one outlet. :)

[Peter W.]

> Well, they are useful for connecting multiple appliances to one outlet. :)

And they protected the plasma TV and two quite nice audio systems without incident. The one on the TV has (had) an indicator stating that it must be replaced visible after the strike. Yes, it has been replaced.

[Michael Terrell]

On Saturday, October 2, 2021 at 11:39:44 AM UTC-4, Peter W. wrote:
> > Well, they are useful for connecting multiple appliances to one outlet. :)
> And they protected the plasma TV and two quite nice audio systems without incident. The one on the TV has (had) an indicator stating that it must be replaced visible after the strike. Yes, it has been replaced.

I recently bid on three cases of Bussman BK1/MOV05131AIA Metal Oxide Varistors on Ebay, I ended up with over 1000 of them
Another bid was for some NTC Thermistors rated for up to 2A. I have over 100.

[Michael Terrell]

The underground phone lines around here are almost 60 years old, and so bad that I can't even get usable landline phone service. That was prior to Hurricane Irma. A pedestal at the end of my street was smashed by a broken power pole, and it wasn't replaced. Instead, it was just removed so the line is completely useless. No broadband, after I had an open neutral on my electric service, so I had to go to Hughesnet for a barely usable connection. It is on kA band, at 55 GHz and it has severe rain fade. It also has so much latency that some websites constantly time out.

[Trevor Wilson]

**Indeed. I though so, when I bought my first modem. 9600 baud. Very
neat. I am pretty certain my next modem came from Fry's in LA and was a
28.8k. When my mate Doug connected to ADSL and got 24Mb/s I was
gob-smacked. Not too shabby for twisted pair. Since I am 3km from my
local exchange, the best I could manage was around 12Mb/s.

[Michael Trew]

Our lines are even older, but they are overhead. It took the tech
forever to find a good pair, but I have no issues or noise on the line.
I also have a new drop into my house, and all new from the demarc inside.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 02 Oct 2021 11:17:33 -0400, Michael Trew
<michae...@att.net> wrote:

>Comcast offers up to gigabit service in my area, but I don't care to pay
>for it.

If you're on SSI or some form of public assistance, and haven't had
Comcast/Xfinity service for 9 months, this might be of interest:
<https://www.internetessentials.com>

>I haven't canceled the DSL because AT&T has grandfathered it..
>if I shut it down, I can't ever get it back, and I have a good deal.
>Streaming on one device works OK, and you certainly don't need any
>faster for e-mail or Usenet, unless uploading large attachments.

I was on Cruzio 1.5Mbit/sec ADSL since 1999. They used AT&T lines.
Last year, AT&T shut down all the "legacy DSL" accounts and
sub-contracts, which included me. Cruzio had nothing that they could
sell me. The available options were Comcast, AT&T U-Verse, Comcast,
WISP wireless, licensed wireless (Etheric), satellite (Dish/Viasat,
HughesNet), or 4G cellular, in order of increasing cost. I would have
gone with Startlink except that I live in a thick forest that blocks
the signal from the satellites. Since then, I've been changing
internet and phone service for my customers and I away from AT&T. My
POTS home phone will shortly be the last to go after I switch to VoIP
and/or cellular. I haven't heard of AT&T "grandfathering" legacy
ADSL. In my case, it wasn't an option. However, not to worry. AT&T
will improve after China takes over:
<http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/Comrade-Ma-Bell-01.jpg>

In my experience, Netlfix and YouTube were useable at 1.5MBits/sec.
Most of the other streaming services and channels were useless. VoIP
(one line) was fine, but rather redundant because my ADSL line was
attached to my POTS home phone line. I considered this acceptable
because I did most of my work in my former palatial office, where I
had 20Mbit/sec Comcast business class. However, I closed the office
Nov 2020 and now need more speed at home.

Interestingly, we had wildfires and power outages in the area since
the beginning of last summer. Comcast has backup batteries in their
pole mounted amplifiers which typically only ran for 2 hrs. AT&T had
their own power systems at the central offices, branch offices, and
some ADSL/PairGain/IDSN/T1/etc pedestals. Those would last much
longer. Since PG&E couldn't supply charger power to the Comcast
amplifiers, and since Comcast was providing lifeline telephone service
which required a proper backup, various government agencies threatened
to investigate. During the last two outages (allegedly caused by
squirrels) Comcast stayed up for 5 and 8 hours respectively.
Obviously, something was done to improved the situation, but nobody is
providing useful info from either Comcast or PG&E.



--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
PO Box 272 http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

[Michael Terrell]

Overhead lines fare better than first generation cables. There are areas in the ounty that have over 75% of the pairs failing, or open.

[Michael Trew]

On 10/2/2021 11:01 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Sat, 02 Oct 2021 11:17:33 -0400, Michael Trew
> <michae...@att.net> wrote:
>
>> Comcast offers up to gigabit service in my area, but I don't care to pay
>> for it.
>
> If you're on SSI or some form of public assistance, and haven't had
> Comcast/Xfinity service for 9 months, this might be of interest:
> <https://www.internetessentials.com>

No public assistance, but thank you. I am not working many hours now,
but even if I easily had the money, I'm cheap.. heh

>> I haven't canceled the DSL because AT&T has grandfathered it..
>> if I shut it down, I can't ever get it back, and I have a good deal.
>> Streaming on one device works OK, and you certainly don't need any
>> faster for e-mail or Usenet, unless uploading large attachments.
>
> I was on Cruzio 1.5Mbit/sec ADSL since 1999. They used AT&T lines.
> Last year, AT&T shut down all the "legacy DSL" accounts and
> sub-contracts, which included me. Cruzio had nothing that they could
> sell me.

What region is this? I've heard several people tell me, especially out
west, that AT&T simply shut down the old ADSL out there, and resellers
and all couldn't sell it. I live in Ohio, former Ameritech region.

> POTS home phone will shortly be the last to go after I switch to VoIP
> and/or cellular. I haven't heard of AT&T "grandfathering" legacy
> ADSL. In my case, it wasn't an option.

I like my POTS line.. if it ever become unreliable, or the price keeps
creeping up to an unreasonable level, I'll probably drop it.

See my post linked here when I got the bill notice; several other people
noticed this as a company-wide decision. I'm still using it at the
moment.. as I was told, I can't move, change speed, etc.. but it still
works as of now.

https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32848850-DSL-is-officially-grandfathered-Get-orders-in-BEFORE-October

> In my experience, Netlfix and YouTube were useable at 1.5MBits/sec.
> Most of the other streaming services and channels were useless. VoIP
> (one line) was fine, but rather redundant because my ADSL line was
> attached to my POTS home phone line.

"Real speed" is about 2 down on any given test. It seems to work OK on
one device, streaming, browsing on one or two others. I doubt it could
do much more.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Tue, 05 Oct 2021 00:01:18 -0400, Michael Trew
<michae...@att.net> wrote:

>> I was on Cruzio 1.5Mbit/sec ADSL since 1999. They used AT&T lines.
>> Last year, AT&T shut down all the "legacy DSL" accounts and
>> sub-contracts, which included me. Cruzio had nothing that they could
>> sell me.

>What region is this? I've heard several people tell me, especially out
>west, that AT&T simply shut down the old ADSL out there, and resellers
>and all couldn't sell it. I live in Ohio, former Ameritech region.

USA, left coast, California, Santa Cruz county. I have not bothered
to investigate the extent of the "legacy DSL" shutdown. I think it's
national. Note the headline here:
<https://www.att.com/internet/dsl/>
"AT&T no longer offers DSL service"
Clicking further down the page, it offers me up to 5 Mbit/sec service
for $45/month plus taxes, equipment fees, hidden charges, and
installation if needed. Why am I not thrilled?

>> POTS home phone will shortly be the last to go after I switch to VoIP
>> and/or cellular. I haven't heard of AT&T "grandfathering" legacy
>> ADSL. In my case, it wasn't an option.
>
>I like my POTS line.. if it ever become unreliable, or the price keeps
>creeping up to an unreasonable level, I'll probably drop it.

I also like POTS phone lines, mostly because they're far more reliable
than anything that goes via the internet or cellular data. However,
my latest AT&T POTS bill was $41.25 for flat rate, no long distance. I
originate or receive perhaps 50 fairly short, non-telemarketting,
phone calls per month making my cost about $0.80 per valid call.
Meanwhile, I'm also paying $75/year for my former office VoIP phone
from:
<https://www.future-nine.com/plans.html> (Bare Essentials plan)
with 2000 incoming minutes and 250 outgoing minutes included. That's
a net savings of about $420/year. I can also switch to all cellular
(cutting the cord) for which I alread pay $28/month.

>See my post linked here when I got the bill notice; several other people
>noticed this as a company-wide decision. I'm still using it at the
>moment.. as I was told, I can't move, change speed, etc.. but it still
>works as of now.
>
>https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r32848850-DSL-is-officially-grandfathered-Get-orders-in-BEFORE-October

Yep. That's not what I received from my ISP. AT&T will continue to
service legacy accounts for their AT&T customers, but not for the
CLEC's, who have equipment located in their central offices and are
leasing AT&T copper phone lines.

>> In my experience, Netlfix and YouTube were useable at 1.5MBits/sec.
>> Most of the other streaming services and channels were useless. VoIP
>> (one line) was fine, but rather redundant because my ADSL line was
>> attached to my POTS home phone line.

>"Real speed" is about 2 down on any given test. It seems to work OK on
>one device, streaming, browsing on one or two others. I doubt it could
>do much more.

Higher speeds (bandwidth) to have their advantages. For me, it was
the ability to do more than one thing online at a time. I can now
download a bloated Microsoft update, stream a movie (in 720p because I
have a small TV and 1080p would be a waste of bandwidth), check my
email, talk on VoIP or Zoom, etc all at the same time. 56Mbits/sec
download, 6Mbits/sec upload. I've tried to overload the bandwidth and
found it somewhat difficult because most (not all) of the streaming
and video programs have some form of adaptive bandwidth management.
Also, I use my routers QoS (quality of service also known as bandwidth
management) settings to all the real-time stuff (mostly VoIP) to have
priority. If you only do one thing at a time online, 2Mbits/sec might
be adequate. 1.5Mbits/sec was adequate for me for about 20 years.
However, if you're into multitasking your life, more bandwidth is a
necessity.

[Ralph Mowery]

In article <lpuolg948p5oqen6j...@4ax.com>,
je...@cruzio.com says...

>
> I also like POTS phone lines, mostly because they're far more reliable
> than anything that goes via the internet or cellular data. However,
> my latest AT&T POTS bill was $41.25 for flat rate, no long distance. I
> originate or receive perhaps 50 fairly short, non-telemarketting,
> phone calls per month making my cost about $0.80 per valid call.
> Meanwhile, I'm also paying $75/year for my former office VoIP phone
> from:
> <https://www.future-nine.com/plans.html> (Bare Essentials plan)
> with 2000 incoming minutes and 250 outgoing minutes included. That's
> a net savings of about $420/year. I can also switch to all cellular
> (cutting the cord) for which I alread pay $28/month.
>
>
>

I like the POTS but my bill was similar to yours for just basic service.
I Switched to internet phone and the internet together is $ 99 per month
for the basic 200 speed download. I don't upload very much so do not
care how how fast that is but do get 10 speed upload. With the
internnet phone I get lots of what would be extra on the POTS like
caller ID and long distance. I can even have it send the incomming call
to my cell phone if I do not answer the home phone.

[Michael Trew]

On 10/5/2021 1:03 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> I also like POTS phone lines, mostly because they're far more reliable
> than anything that goes via the internet or cellular data. However,
> my latest AT&T POTS bill was $41.25 for flat rate, no long distance. I
> originate or receive perhaps 50 fairly short, non-telemarketting,
> phone calls per month making my cost about $0.80 per valid call.

After all taxes/fees, that's about what my unlimited local flat rate
line costs. I pay about $5 per month, give/take to a third party LD
service (TCI LD), for approximately 60 minutes of LD per month. 5
cents/min domestic plus tax. I probably make/receive more calls than
that. I hardly, if ever, use my cell. It's 10 cents per minute (but
nothing more), with a minimum of $10/year, so I make a point of not
using it.

[bud--]

Excellent information on surges and surge protection is
<http://lightningsafety.com/nlsi_lhm/IEEE_Guide.pdf>
"How to protect your house and its contents from lightning: IEEE guide
for surge protection of equipment connected to AC power and
communication circuits" published by the IEEE

A much simper guide is:
<https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/SP/nistspecialpublication960-6.pdf>
"NIST recommended practice guide: Surges Happen!: how to protect the
appliances in your home" published by the US National Institute of
Standards and Technology

Both say surge protectors (plug-in and service) are effective. But, as
clearly explained in the IEEE guide, for plug-in protectors all
interconnected equipment needs to be connected to the same protector and
external connections, like coax also must go through the protector.
Peter guessed that was the problem. A common cause of damage is high
voltage between signal and power wires. As explained in the IEEE surge
guide (starting page 30) plug-in protectors work primarily by limiting
the voltage from each wire to the ground at the protector. To do that
all wires must go through the protector.

Service entry protection can also work. Again, the voltage on ALL wires
entering the building is clamped to a common ground with SHORT wires.

In both cases the voltage of "ground" and the wires may lift thousands
of volts from the earth potential 100 ft distant, but the voltage
between the wires is safe for the connected equipment.

-----
The surge expert at the NIST looked at the maximum surge that has any
reasonable probability of occurring (US). It is 10,000A per power
service wire. This is based on a 100,000A lightning strike to an
adjacent utility pole in typical US urban overhead distribution. The
IEEE surge guide has recommendations for surge amp ratings on page 18.
Ratings far higher than 10,000A per wire mean the protector will have a
long life.

-----
The NIST surge expert also investigated how much energy can reach the
MOVs (the major voltage limiter) in a plug-in protector (with no service
panel suppressor). Branch circuits were 10m and longer, and surges
coming in on power wires were up to 10,000A (which is the maximum
probable surge, as above). The maximum energy was a surprisingly small
35 joules. In 13 of 15 cases it was 1 joule or less. Plug-in protectors
with much higher ratings are readily available. (This is US, and there
are a couple reasons that may be different. One is the neutral-ground
bond in services. The other is arc-over described below.)

There are 2 reasons the energy is so small. One is that at about 6,000V
there is arc-over from the service panel busbars to the enclosure. After
the arc is established the voltage is hundreds of volts. Since the
enclosure/ground/neutral are connected to the earthing system that dumps
most of the incoming surge energy to earth

The second reason is the impedance of the branch circuit wiring. A surge
is a very short event. That means the current components are relatively
high frequency. That means the wire inductance is more important than
the resistance. The branch circuit impedance greatly limits the current
to the MOVs, which greatly limits the energy that can make it to the MOVs.

The maximum was not even for the largest surges. The largest surges
forced the voltage at the service above 6kV and arc-over. For some
smaller surges (with the shortest branch circuits) the MOV at the
protector held the voltage at the panel below 6kV and there was no
arc-over. One of them resulted in the maximum energy of 35 joules. The
voltage at the panel was higher than the stable arc-over voltage but
lower than 6kV

-----
Antennas can be protected from a direct strike - hams do it. It involves
much more than most people are interest in doing. Protecting a building
from a direct strike requires a lightning rod system.

[Mike S]

What make and model were they Peter?

[Mike S]

I don't know if or when it will be provided in your area, but the Cruzio
fiber is great, both speed and latency.

[Peter W.]

> What make and model were they Peter?,

Cyberpower is the make. The unit in place was from 2009, we replaced it with a more recent model, of course.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Wed, 13 Oct 2021 17:56:58 -0700, Mike S <ms...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>I don't know if or when it will be provided in your area, but the Cruzio
>fiber is great, both speed and latency.

I could only dream. I have friends and customers that have Cruzio
fiber or wireless. They love it. I've talked to them about the
possibility. Cruzio seems to be concentrating on high density and
urban areas, where the number of users per mile of fiber is much
higher than in the semi-rural areas of SLV (San Lorenzo Valley). In
the FAQ, it proclaims:
<https://santacruzfiber.com/faq>
What Neighborhood will get built first?
High rates of signups will move neighborhoods up in priority.
Other factors will matter, too, including how close a
neighborhood is to the fiber hub, and how many barriers are
in the way. The best way to get your neighborhood ahead in
priority is to get lots of people to tell us they’re interested.
That's unlikely to happen in SLV. Even in the denser areas near SCZ,
fiber service is spotty:
<https://santacruzfiber.com/blog/rollout-progress>
I don't have a current map showing areas covered, but currently it's
downtown SCZ, Scotts Valley, several trailer parks in Live Oak, and
Watsonville:
<https://santacruzfiber.com/watsonville>
I probably missed a few areas, but currently nothing in SLV (Felton,
Ben Lomond, and Boulder Creek).

[Mike S]

Sorry to hear that it's not an option. I know of one case where a point
to point wireless link with some decent radios using parabolic antennas
shared high speed internet and it worked well.

[Mike S]

Thanks.

[Peter W.]

One more thing: Every single string-filament LED in the house got fried - those that were in the chandeliers, not the spares, that is. As we found out yesterday when the kids and grands were over for dinner. No small thing, as there are 26 in the dining room, 16 in the center-hall, and 12 in the library.

They look like this - in various wattages: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/7175z+CxhXL._AC_SL1420_.jpg

How, I do not know, unless the strike came down the neutral as well as the cable - not impossible. They were all turned off, of course.

[Jeff Liebermann]

Induction perhaps? Those LED "filaments" form a 1 turn loop of 60
LED's in series. A lightning strike nearby could create enough of a
field to blow out the bulbs. In a 60 LED series string (E12), only
one LED needs to open in order to kill the bulb. The chandeliers have
all the bulbs in parallel, so they all get the same overvoltage spike.
The loop is typically completed by a light dimmer with MOV overvoltage
protection, but I suspect it isn't necessary if the house wiring to
the chandelier is long enough.

Just a guess because we don't get much lightning on the left coast so
I have little experience with lightning.

[Peter W.]

> Induction perhaps? Those LED "filaments" form a 1 turn loop of 60
> LED's in series. A lightning strike nearby could create enough of a
> field to blow out the bulbs.

I would agree with this, but for the fact that the failure modes were not uniform.

Some began blinking at turn-on.
Two cracked the glass envelope - neatly at the base.
Some just never lit.
Some got intermittent dark spots on the filaments.

My best guess is that there is some sort of driver element(s) in the base that were affected.... When I am back on my feet, reliably, I will slit one with the Dremel and see what gives.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2021 10:53:28 -0700 (PDT), "Peter W."
<peterw...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>> Induction perhaps? Those LED "filaments" form a 1 turn loop of 60
>> LED's in series. A lightning strike nearby could create enough of a
>> field to blow out the bulbs.
>
>I would agree with this, but for the fact that the failure modes were not uniform.

LED's and diodes usually fail by shorting out. Once one diode is
shorted, the current increases causing the next diode in the string to
short. This continues until the current is high enough the blow up a
thin wire or trace, usually in the base. If you have a microscope
handy, you can possibly visually distinguish between the good and
shorted diodes.

>Some began blinking at turn-on.

Current regulator device or circuit might be oscillating.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_filament>
"The simple capacitive or resistive dropper power supply used by some
cheaper bulbs will cause some flickering..."

>Two cracked the glass envelope - neatly at the base.

The glass envelope is sealed. Sudden rise in internal gas pressure
might cause the envelope to explode.

>Some just never lit.

Simulated a fuse?

>Some got intermittent dark spots on the filaments.

I have some bad guesses for what caused that. Maybe later.

>My best guess is that there is some sort of driver element(s) in the base that were affected.... When I am back on my feet, reliably, I will slit one with the Dremel and see what gives.

Autopsy. Some design details here:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_filament#Design>
<https://patents.google.com/patent/US8400051>

>Peter Wieck
>Melrose Park, PA

[Mike S]

Interesting discussion, I'm looking fwd to followups. I looked around
online a little but and nobody I read seemed to think a lightning
arrestor on the neutral would be of any use, but I don't know myself,
here to learn.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2021 21:09:21 -0700, Mike S <ms...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Interesting discussion, I'm looking fwd to followups. I looked around
>online a little but and nobody I read seemed to think a lightning
>arrestor on the neutral would be of any use, but I don't know myself,
>here to learn.

Where would you ground or connect such a lightning arrestor? The
neutral (white) wire is always connected to earth (green) ground at
the main electrical panel. Installing a lightning arrestor across
ground to ground is not going to do anything useful.

More than you probably wanted to know on electrical grounding:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_and_neutral>

[KenW]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2021 21:53:44 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com>
wrote:

>On Mon, 25 Oct 2021 21:09:21 -0700, Mike S <ms...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Interesting discussion, I'm looking fwd to followups. I looked around
>>online a little but and nobody I read seemed to think a lightning
>>arrestor on the neutral would be of any use, but I don't know myself,
>>here to learn.
>
>Where would you ground or connect such a lightning arrestor? The
>neutral (white) wire is always connected to earth (green) ground at
>the main electrical panel. Installing a lightning arrestor across
>ground to ground is not going to do anything useful.
>
>More than you probably wanted to know on electrical grounding:
><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_and_neutral>

In my first home an arrestor ? was installed in the electric panel
when I updated to 200amp service. 30 +/- years ago.


KenW

[Mike S]

On 10/25/2021 9:53 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Oct 2021 21:09:21 -0700, Mike S <ms...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Interesting discussion, I'm looking fwd to followups. I looked around
>> online a little but and nobody I read seemed to think a lightning
>> arrestor on the neutral would be of any use, but I don't know myself,
>> here to learn.
>
> Where would you ground or connect such a lightning arrestor? The
> neutral (white) wire is always connected to earth (green) ground at
> the main electrical panel. Installing a lightning arrestor across
> ground to ground is not going to do anything useful.
>
> More than you probably wanted to know on electrical grounding:
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_and_neutral>

Thanks, that was a good read, I never knew the "difference".

This was interesting,

"The current drawn by non-linear loads, such as fluorescent & HID
lighting and electronic equipment containing switching power supplies,
often contains harmonics. Triplen harmonic currents (odd multiples of
the third harmonic) are additive, resulting in more current in the
shared neutral conductor than in any of the phase conductors. In the
absolute worst case, the current in the shared neutral conductor can be
triple that in each phase conductor."

[bud--]

Triplens add on 3-phase.