boltonblue

I mentioned in the comcast thread I had a nearby lightning strike.
No big deal, took out the cable splitters coming into the house.

oh and the second floor thermostats...

and crap the video input section of the home theater projector...
and the video output section of the home theater receiver
we're now starting to talk about expensive crap....
stuff I don't want to have to replace.

sigh.

paS2K

does insurance cover any of these losses, Jerry/MA? or is Lightning an "act of God"...

toekneer

Were they not connected to power surge protectors?

Sent by carrier pigeon

Matt_in_VA

May I suggest that you think about the big picture?

Like you, I would be complaining. Then one should step back and think about how many people around the world would LOVE to faced with this problem, as opposed to where their next meal or clean water is coming from.

Just yesterday, I got into a conversation at a bar about how nice it would be to have the problem of having a tax liability of owing a million dollars in taxes.

With all that stated: Does your home owners cover this? It did when out well pump got struck by lightning 545 feet under ground. Yes, you read that correctly.

boltonblue

I clearly recognize that this is a first world problem. We're talking about toys, nothing more.
you can note from my other post, I'm disappointed but very grateful that this was not much, much worse.
I have friends who've had strikes and lost everything electronic; as in, if it had a power cord it was dead.
computers, TVs, dishwashers,refrigerators you name it.
I strongly believe this would/will be covered under homeowners.
The downside is that these are a couple years old and the insurance company will depreciate the crap out of them.
I bet when the math is done, it will add up to just about $50 bucks under my deductible. if that in fact.

So for clarification, there are a few kinds of lightning strikes.
The first is a direct strike. It hit your house or power lines into directly.
We're talking many many megavolts of electricity with enough power to blow a tree trunk apart.
But you can also have an induced strike.
CAUTION TECHNICAL GEEKY STUFF:
If a tree gets hit, the power runs down the tree and spreads out through the ground.
For a brief moment in time the voltage in the ground around the tree rises dramatically as the potential is dissipated.
This why people get killed hiding under tress during a thunderstorm.
If a wire is running through that area, it will inductively couple to the voltage in the ground plane and generate an induced voltage on it.
It can generate a lot of voltage but orders of magnitude less than the initial strike.
So it's on the order of kilovolts of electricity. Basically a really nasty spike or surge.
[/TECHNICAL GEEKY STUFF]

For the record, a surge protector is utterly useless in the case of a direct strike.
A lightning bolt just jumped through 5 miles of air, it will easily just blow right through it.
In our case the cable running by the tree was the comcast cable and not a power line. It picked up the induced spike.
Any electronics of value had snubbers i.e. surge protectors on them and they appear to have done their job since we didn't lose any power supplies.
What was not protected was the cable line. The splitters acted as a surge protector in a very limited way, they popped.
Somehow, and I haven't figured out the physics of how*, the HDMI cable got in the loop and got an induced voltage on it.
So the video output section of the home theater is toast as is the video input section of the projector.
This part of the logic only is designed for a volt or two so a big spike has big consequences.
The units "work" otherwise. I can bring up the menu display on the projector, I just can't show any video.
The audio portion of the receiver works fine, I just can't pass any video out of it.
It's unlikely that I will repair either unit however, it's just to hard top predict what else has been over-stressed in the unit and is ready to die.


So yeah I'll go count my chickens and maybe have one of 'em for dinner.
It also means I'm watching the German GP and British Open on the little TV and not the big screen.


* as I typed this, I'm thinking that the comcast box is toast even though it appears to kinda work.

Ryuu

back in the days... had lightening strike a CB antenna.. anything plugged in with any standby mode, was fried... however... and.. this is the good part... my surge protector company.. Tripp Lite... bought us all new stuff... some of those cheap surge protectors.. come with direct lightening strike insurance... these had something like a $10,000 policy... some had $25,000 policies attached... So... a good surge protector will Not stop the lightening... they will pay for the damages... Good Surge Protectors and Battery Backups rock...

one thing from the direct strike I just recalled... not only did it fry electronics.. it fused the power meter box.. and it was running backwards... the house continued to have electrical problems until the power company found that...



watching the german gp too...

Zippy

Lost the processor-preamp for my home theater this week. We took a pretty good hit this week, and nothing else suffered this time, but the transient appears to have crossed my power conditioner and whacked my Integra DHC 9.9. So no sound downstairs, ahhhhh!

Monster's warrantee and insurance are good for only the first 5 years. That sucks.

Lainey

Well that's a PIA, Jerry.


We've been lucky, and not had the weather in our corner of MA that you have had in yours.

dlq04

When the transformer went on my watersoftener during a storm it was on a multiplug surge protector which proved useless.

cosmomiller

Our house is on a ridge. When it was being designed I asked about lightning rods. I was shot down by all concerned. (20 years ago) So about 10 years ago we took an indirect strike. First I noticed the computer was shot. Took out the hard drive and saw a burn mark right across it! Then the wife said the washing machine was out. Looked at the usual suspects and when I looked at the circuit board, I found some burned resistors. Radio Shack trip, soldered them in and it works. Then the fax machine revealed itself to be dead. I am just a country handy man but that machine is dead, Jim.

Nowhere did I have surge protectors. I do now. No problems since. Nothing for well though.