No, surge protectors are designed only to protect against power line voltage spikes caused by large motors such as those in air conditioners and refrigerators. Lightning is tens of thousands of volts at thousands of Amps and it can destroy everything plugged into your house wiring, even if you don't receive a direct hit. Even the telephone company advises that you not use a land-line telephone during a lightning storm because of the shock hazard from a lightning strike somewhere along their line.
Last year a friend's water well pump one mile from his house, who is not even on the electrical grid, was struck by lightning. The bolt traveled up the power cord and water pipe and destroyed everything electrical or electronic, even a remote control gate two miles away that was solar powered. He had to replace his entire electrical system, solar panels, wind generators, batteries, converters, refrigerator, TV, washing machine, satellite dish, etc. etc. Surge protectors were turned into blobs of melted plastic.
Chuck,
Wouldn't plugging your DCC system/power packs into a surge protector help to protect everything from power spikes and/or lightning strikes in the future?
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
dragenrider wrote: I'm puzzled as to why the Lokprogrammer and NCE station were affected. The power strip to them was off.
I'm puzzled as to why the Lokprogrammer and NCE station were affected. The power strip to them was off.
Power strips offer no protection against lightning. The high currrent of a lightning strike jumps across switch contacts of the power strip and everything plugged into one, and can destroy anything and everything. The only protection is to unplug everything. Your NCE system's electronics and power booster are probably history. Unplug all electronics during a thunderstorm.
Hi, Bob,
Both of the lights are on. The cab and wireless antenna light are twinkling. When I unscrew the cab's antenna it loses contact and the LED goes off. Fresh batteries are in place.
By the way, folks, I think I know what happened. It appears that lightening struck a telephone pole next door early this morning. We've been finding jumbled electronics all day. One TV's picture is off, an LED in a night light blew, the cable line outside fried, and my LokProgrammer no longer recognizes or programs decoders. ( sob!) I believe the NCE command station was hit and is manifesting it's problem in this one area.
The Cedar Branch & Western--The Hillbilly Line!
Two questions. Is the red light on the wireless base lit up and blinking? also does the light on top of the cab blink at all? also, if the batteries are dead in the wireless, it will work with plug in, but not in radio. Test the batteries.
Bob
If that procedure doesn't work, you may have a bad wireless receiver. Something else to try is to unscrew the antenna from the receiver and cab and then put them back on.
I discovered that the antenna mount is just a slip-on fit over the end of the circuit board and is not soldered. I disassembled all of mine and soldered the connections. Yours may be loose and not making good contact with the circuit board.
Thanks, I tried that without results. I'll try it again, though.
I agree, NCE has great support. I've already sent them an email.
Jay
C-415 Build: https://imageshack.com/a/tShC/1
Other builds: https://imageshack.com/my/albums
1. Plug in the ProCab cable to the CAB BUS connector of the Powerhouse.2. Unplug the ProCab at the base of the cab.3. Press and hold the SELECT LOCO button while re-plugging in the cable you just removed from the cab.4. You should see the following display on the cab: NCE PROCAB V1.3 CAB ADDRESS = 025. The cursor will be flashing over the 0 of "02". Type in the new cab number. Valid range is 2-63.6. Press PROG/ESC to skip setting all the other cab setup options.7. Plug the wireless receiver into the CAB BUS connector of the Powerhouse.
(This information is from page 2 of the PROCAB Operation Manual, which you can download from the NCE web site if you don't have it.
I have an odd problem. My Power Pro command station no longer recognizes my wireless throttle. The throttle functions fine when plugged in, but once unplugged fails to go past the start up screen. The LED's show radio communication. I've reset the command station without any change. The batteries are fresh.
Can anyone tell me how to reintroduce the wireless throttle?
While we are on the subject, has anyone upgraded their NCE wireless to the Generation 3 programming? See: http://www.ncedcc.com/ for more information. It sounds like a nice answer to many of my annoyances. Provided I can get the system working with the wireless again, of course.