The Hopefully Final tally of a power spike.

[Bufferstop]

I've just taken delivery of a new "3G clear signal" unit, it's effectively a micro base station that connects to the network over broadband. I had thought we hadn't been getting many calls since the power spike happened, we were relying on two "over the hill" base stations which connect on odd occasions, but may as well not be there.
Total tally to date.
Computer network adaptors - 2
Whole computers -------------- 1
network switch ports----------- 2
3G base station ----------------- 1

What gets me is everything that got damaged was powered from one of two UPS units, neither of which suffered any damage, which would have made it possible to claim on their lifetime warranty for connected equipment. Everything that was damaged was connected to both ethernet and mains as well as other equipment. I'm hoping that the dead computer is just components in its power circuits as it's everybody's favourite, a minute little box that balances on one corner and can work with just it's 19V power lead and an HDMI lead everything else being wi-fi or bluetooth. One of the network adaptors was on the motherboard and it simply brought forward retirement day for that box, it'll get cannibalised to keep other stuff going. In the short term it's two drives will be mounted in spare bays on it's identical twin to make retrieving stuff easier. The switch ports are now blocked by the cut of ends of an ethernet patch cord fortunately only 5 of the 8 ports were needed.
Took 3 days to get everything up and working by which time I was darned glad we had booked some days away.

[Richard Lee]

Sorry to hear about your problems.

Power spikes are frequent in Bulgarian villages, particularly when there is thunder about. The automatic washing machine that I had was a victim; I was told that it was uneconomic to replace the circuit board that had died. (We now use a second-hand Russian-made semi-automatic washing machine that doesn't have any digital electronics, but is robustly built.) You can try unplugging anything electronic during a thunderstorm, but that just reduces risk, not eliminates it.

You can buy extension cables with 5 sockets on the end, intended for computers, that are supposed to give protection from power surges. They help to some extent, but won't work if it is a really bad one. A friend in another village lost a computer to a power spike despite using such a lead.

This problem has been one factor in helping me to decide to remain with DC rather than going for DCC. I see analogue controllers as being electrically more robust, cheaper, and covered by a life-time guarantee if of Gaugemaster provenance.

[Bufferstop]

Took the Asus EEEbox apart thankfully there was a how to on YouTube, as it's all fitted in a box the size of a router. No fried or burned components to be seen, gave it a good clean out, pulled out and refitted memory, harddrive and front panel connections, re-assembled and it came back to life, phew, don't ask, back to it's job as a media streamer for the telly.

[Bigmet]

...Power spikes are frequent in Bulgarian villages, particularly when there is thunder about...This problem has been one factor in helping me to decide to remain with DC rather than going for DCC...

Probably a good decision. I have seen a commercial theatrical/entertainment installed lighting system - which works on the same principle as DCC, central processor, low voltage power with embedded signal to local processor per light/filter selector/vapour generator etc., several command points - extensively damaged when very definitely off power, by electrical storm. No local ground strike, but enough electric field to induce currents in the unscreened wiring. Normally such systems go into fairly modern buildings, with significant amounts of well earthed steel frame and other metal work providing a fairly effective Faraday cage. But not in this case, the many circa 70m runs of unscreened cable high up in an all wooden roof construction the primary suspect for where the induction occurred.

[mahoganydog]

Hi Bufferstop,

I can slightly beat your list.

3 TV's
1 VHS
1 DVD player
1 PC
Alarm system
Power Shower
My PC steering wheel
Aerial signal booster
Modem

What happened? Lightning strike direct hit to the TV aerial. I was in bed listening to the radio at the time when there was an almighty bang. Parts of the plastic housing on the aerial were found fifty feet away some of the strike seems to have earthed into the steel supports in the attic exploding the cable in the process.

Jim

[Bufferstop]

I don't think the conditions were right for lightning strike or atmospheric discharge. Most likely suspect is Openreach, grounding our pair at the cab or exchange, our neutral, grounded 50yds down the road is often 30v above the local ground and lord knows what with respect to an earth connection in Stratford. Everything damaged was connected to the mains, the network and the router. It's all down to lousy subsoil (200yr old quarry waste) and being the last house on a badly balanced overhead supply. They swap connections to the overhead supply to try to improve the balancing but there's too few properties to make much difference.

[TimberSurf]

I can slightly beat your list

I can trump that mahoganydog!

I was working on a contract, with the site offices being 60 portacabins, double stacked.
We had our own 90 phone extension PBX exchange, 4 broadband connections, 300+ ethernet sockets (distributed across 3 segregated networks) and about 60 people using about 90 PC's.

I was sitting in front of my PC when we heard a thunder crack and the screen went blank.

We thought it had been a power cut and suspected lightning tripped the main breaker

Turns out it was, but not only had all the breakers tripped, we found other damage too.

Investigation revealed........a street lamp post was hit by lightning, not finding the power cable supplying it, had a very good earth, it decided to arc across to a better one, which was the BT street connection box 3 feet away!
The spike travelled down the telephone cables to our PBX.
That exploded (just a blackened backplane left, £4k up the swanny!), the spike travelled down the phone extensions (doing little damage to the phones) and induced a spike into all the Cat5e cables running side by side with the phone lines.

Result, a few laptops damaged, but every single desktop's ethernet card, was blown!
We replaced 27 coms cards (not many motherboards had ethernet on board luckily), PBX and a LOT of wiring!

My home ariel and incoming phone line run through a surge supressor 6 gang socket with coax, RJ45, BT combined

I would strongly recommend buying one, at least for your TV aerial and one for your phone line if it is fed to the house by overhead line, ditto your main incomer if your house power supply is fed by overhead lines (although should only be done by a professional sparky).

Timbersurf > Electrical Design Engineer

[GWR_fan]

About twenty years ago shortly after moving into a newly constructed home the telephone connection was struck by lightning causing some damage. All I remember was a flash of light as the steel three-car carport next door was struck. The distance between the carport and my house is about two metres. I have no knowledge of the intervening few seconds but I found myself several metres down the hall, dazed by the events.

Several years later the carport was once again struck causing me to purchase a new router. All I can assume is that when the carport is struck the discharge must be induced through my telephone network. Perhaps the carport is not adequately grounded.

[mahoganydog]

I can trump that mahoganydog!

Mother nature can be pretty vicious when she wants to be.

Perhaps the carport is not adequately grounded.

Prior to our strike there was one a few doors up which hit an oak tree which was sadly cut down even though there was no need. Very impressive to see the point of impact on a low branch and the two inch wide gouge all the way down where the bark had been blown off. It killed a neighbour's computer and a few other things while a tree at the top of the road in a field has been hit at least three times.

The electric board came around a few years back wanting to check the underground cable for a fault. One patch of ground was bone dry and there was a constant rumbling underground 'That's where the fault is.' he said. Don't know how many KV that cable was!

I think this thread is a slight advert for surge protectors not that they would survive a direct hit!

Jim

[Bufferstop]

The 3 phase transformer (actually its predecessor) which is the main source of our earth problems, suffered an insulation failure about ten years ago. I was walking the dog who suddenly turned back towards home, so I slipped her lead and let her trot back, then walked on towards the poles where the transformer is mounted. The moisture which had been absorbed into the wood along with the creosote which should have stopped it was boiling and bubbling out of the wood, whilst steam was being ejected from the soil at the base of the pole. I rejoined the dog back at home and phoned the Board. Their operator couldn't believe me, so I asked to speak to the supervisor who thought that he'd put me on hold whilst he spoke to an engineer, "O Sh**"came the reply "tell him to keep away from it" the operator came back to me "I don't need telling to keep away from it, but I'm just warning the neighbours to."was my retort. The following day three vans one with a cherry picker arrived along with a truck with a hoist and a new transformer.
Just to exacerbate the problem our telephone cable comes overhead along the road to a pole 10ft or so the other side of the transformer. Goes down underground and comes up to a pole this side of the transformer where there's a terminal block. The individual drop wires come from the block, hitching a lift up the road from the electricity poles, then across to the houses, apart from ours and our neighbours which again go underground for the last length into the houses. Should anyone be surprised that we have problems.
As a PS, the last person to climb the final electricity pole (they don't have steps like BT ones) used a belt and spurs, he was, a Pole!