Let me apologize for the length of this upfront.
I had three business trips in June on consecutive weeks starting June 8. The fourth consecutive week was travel for our vacation. On the 16th I traveled to a site in the San Francisco Bay Area (Fremont), California. I worked at that facility and got to visit the Train Shop in Santa Clara and Just Trains in Concord, both old haunts.
That night I got a call from my wife that lightning struck our house. Turns out it struck at some unknown location between our house and our neighbors (they thought it struck theirs, too). Half the circuit breakers popped, but we have a lightning arrestor on the main and a whole house surge suppressor in the panel box, plus pretty major league surge suppression on the TVs, stereo, computers, printers, and anything else electronic, including the model railroad.
Sounds okay, but no. The surge came in through the power, cable, and phone lines (based on my troubleshooting). The power surge was clamped by the cocktail of devices I mentioned above. The only damage I can attribute to power is a low-voltage control board in our on our AC compressor units (now fixed) and the hot tub control board, also low voltage and the hot tub splits off the circuit at the same place (either right before or right after) the lightning arrestor.
The phone line did more damage. That enters the house and into a distribution panel. One line connects to a DSL filter before the distribution panel, and the filter bought the farm. When I replaced it, the line worked. Two more lines go directly to the distribution panel and fried their circuits, so I had to replace the distribution board. Two phones and one in-wall jack gave their lives from that.
The worst was the cable. It killed the TiVo. The TiVo sent a charge through its network port that killed the LAN port on a smart DVD player, which in turn fried the input port on the TV that it was attached to (there are four input ports on the TV and only the TiVo and DVD player, so that is an inconvenience). The LAN port on the smart TV was unharmed. The $30 Netgear switch gave its life.
But wait, there’s more. It also blasted through Charter’s modem, into the router (frying that), arced to the main network switch, frying that, and proceeding to fry every LAN port on every device connected directly to the main switch. What survived had a switch between it and the main switch. The casualties: 2 computers (motherboards, CPUs, memory, video cards which, like the DVD player, took out the input ports or boards on the monitors they were attached to), and a RAID controller (all the drives in both systems survived unharmed, including the data), and three printers (one repaired by simply replacing the network print server module, one completely dead, one works but has no LAN access).
All that leads to this: A third computer faired a lot better, suffering only a blown LAN port. But the surge also went out the serial port, through the LocoBuffer, and into the LocoNet. Everything between the command station and point of entry , other than UP3/5s, fried. That includes the DCS100, an SE8C, and a BDL162 that are on their way back to Digitrax to see if they can repair them. The LocoBuffer is dead (or perhaps it is the serial port it is attached to, but either way, replacing it with a USB version solves either problem). Two DB150s on the other side of the DCS-100 as well as the UR92 survived. One throttle was plugged into the affected section of LocoNet, and it works as if nothing happened. The LocoNet wiring, itself, is fine.
We still have no idea what the lightning actually struck. The houses are undamaged, and every tree and patch of ground looks untouched.
Like I said, our house is pretty heavily fortified and it stil took out a lot of electronics. I will make it more so, having already installed lightning/surge arrestors on the network between the cable and DSL modems and the router, will put an arrestor on the cable entry point to the house, and will put surge protection on the cable and phone entry points to the modems.
It could have been a lot worse. For example, my neighbor has a low pressure pump on his septic system which was rendered inoperative and went unnoticed for five days…with him, his wife, son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter. Not sure how that goes on for five days without someone noticing, but who knows.
In the words of the Hill Street Blues desk sergeant, “be careful out there!”
- Mark
That is a major bummer. I've always been a fan of good ol' ethernet, even as wireless stuff proliferated. The wife likes wireless, though, and we've gradually been moving in that direction. My JMRI box is wireless, although gets 110v through the usual laptop power supply. Fortunately, the house has a surge protector under the meter, so protects the whole mess. No copper-line phone since we went VOIP, we cut the cable line when the fiber broadband went in and it's underground to boot.
If I didn't have all the antennas from another hobby, radio monitoring, I'd actually feel pretty good about how I'm set up.
Then again, a direct hit will leave nature laughing in your face over such puny prep.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
That's a shame. All that equipment fried. I hope no one was injured.
Lighting does not have to directly hit an electrical device to trash it. Comming close to the power line is enough to fry all your equipment. What you did't mentioned is the 'grounding' of your service. All electricity tries to go to ground. All electricity takes the path of least resistance. A properly grounded system is your first line of defense for power surges, including lighting. A properly grounded system gives the electrical surge an unimpeded path to ground, bypassing all your surge suppressors and equipment. That's how lighting rods work. They give the lighting an easy path to ground rather than through a building. You should have a ground rod out side connected to your electrical panel. The ground rod should be at least 2' from the house. Any closer and it is not properly grounding your service. You might need more than one ground rod depending on your soil.
meihman: if your antennae mast are properly grounded, they make excellant lighting rods. My dad was a HAM operator and had a 60' mast for his antennae. On two occasions we witnessed his antennae taking a direct lighting hit. There was no damage to his antennae or equipment.
South Penn
SouthPenn That's a shame. All that equipment fried. I hope no one was injured. Lighting does not have to directly hit an electrical device to trash it. Comming close to the power line is enough to fry all your equipment. What you did't mentioned is the 'grounding' of your service. All electricity tries to go to ground. All electricity takes the path of least resistance. A properly grounded system is your first line of defense for power surges, including lighting. A properly grounded system gives the electrical surge an unimpeded path to ground, bypassing all your surge suppressors and equipment. That's how lighting rods work. They give the lighting an easy path to ground rather than through a building. You should have a ground rod out side connected to your electrical panel. The ground rod should be at least 2' from the house. Any closer and it is not properly grounding your service. You might need more than one ground rod depending on your soil. meihman: if your antennae mast are properly grounded, they make excellant lighting rods. My dad was a HAM operator and had a 60' mast for his antennae. On two occasions we witnessed his antennae taking a direct lighting hit. There was no damage to his antennae or equipment. South Penn
The irony is the electrical system is grounded well. I was pretty happy with the way it performed. The cable service, apparently not so much. The more I troubleshoot, the more that appears to be the point of entry where most of the major damage occurred. Its status in terms of being grounded is about to change. I'll be putting a lightning/surge arrestor that goes to the electrical ground on the cable point of entry into the house. Our cable signal is strong enough that they had to weaken it for the cable modem to work correctly.
All these lines are buried in our neighborhood (and at the approximate area of the strike), so the prevailing theory by the electrician is it struck either a tree or the ground near enough to the buried lines of the three houses on our street to get into the utilities.
From my wife's original description, I expected her to report to me the chimney was gone. But it is still up there and in one piece.
The hot tub people were out today. The damage there is the low voltage control panel. That is consistent with everything else, and they said they have been replacing a lot of those around here for the same reason. The pumps all work. That and the AC compressor unit are the exceptions to the "cable point of entry" diagnosis.
Thankfully, SouthPenn, your hope is true.....nobody was injured.
I have hopes for the command station once Digitrax gets their hands on it (UPS tried to send it back to may halfway between here and Florida, at least according to the tracking information). I'm less optimistic about the SE8C and BDL162. Those losses would be minor in the grand scheme.
Boy, sounds familiar...
My last "hit" took out one TV, the phone, the modem, a UPS on the layout computer, the printer on said computer, SE8C, the command station, a PR3, and various other items.
My problem was it went through the UPS, to computer, then out the serial port to printer, and through the USB ports, to the PR3, then through that to the daisy-chained Zephyr, and SE8C.
Lesson learned was to always disconnect layout connection on the computer when not in use. And, I always unplug the power supply on layout when not in use.
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
My Railroad rules:
1: It's my railroad, my rules.
2: It's for having fun and enjoyment.
3: Any objections, consult above rules.
Sounds all too familiar. A couple of years ago just before Christmas, lightning struck our neighbor's tree, arced across two others to ground out through the Christmas lights on our gutter (there was wn arc-weld spot on the metal gutter at the point of entry). Apparently it fed through the electrical system and cable system and fried our landline phone base, the cable modem, and the older tube-type TV in the bedroom. Everything else escaped unscathed.
Fast forward to about April, 2014. My club took a lightning strike that apparently went through the electrical system as well, but arced from the overhead lights to the UR92 mounted at the top of the mountain in the middle of the building. Of course then it fed through the Loconet cables to fry the PM42s, LocoBuffer, and sent just enough through the DCS200 to cause it to start glitching, but not enough to completely fry it.
Lightning is NOT your friend!
Robert Beaty
The Laughing Hippie
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The CF-7...a waste of a perfectly good F-unit!
Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the
end of your tunnel, Was just a freight train coming
your way. -Metallica, No Leaf Clover
delete..duplicate post
Colorado Front Range Railroad: http://www.coloradofrontrangerr.com/
ricktrains4824 Boy, sounds familiar... My last "hit" took out one TV, the phone, the modem, a UPS on the layout computer, the printer on said computer, SE8C, the command station, a PR3, and various other items. My problem was it went through the UPS, to computer, then out the serial port to printer, and through the USB ports, to the PR3, then through that to the daisy-chained Zephyr, and SE8C. Lesson learned was to always disconnect layout connection on the computer when not in use. And, I always unplug the power supply on layout when not in use.
A quick update and a pat on the back as a result. I got a package from Digitrax today that included a repaired DCS100, SE8C, and BDL162, plus a DT300 I included that was not working prior to the lightning strike. While I have not had a chance to test them yet, the descriptions of what was done is logical given the problems. The whole shebang, including the throttle, cost me $100. Given that is the going rate for an SE8C, I'll take it.
A hearty thank you to Digitrax. I expected at least the SE8C or BDL162 to not be repairable. That was about the only "pleasant surprise" from sweeping up the ashes of the lightning strike.