steve_b
08-04-2006, 01:00 AM
Well, we took a lightning hit at work a couple weeks ago and the radar went down.
No obvious poofs or smoke, but enough energy came down the signal lines that the electronics died.
I was just walking in to the room where the electrical conduits come in to the building from the tower.· Big flash, boom and I saw an arc flash across the 90deg elbow in the conduit.· Uh...diapers please! haha
Anyhow, some of that energy went in to the ground where we have buried cable going to a logger/wind tower.· The comms got knocked out and I just got around to looking at it.· Here's a picture of the MAX232 chip.· Big chunk blasted out....note the discolouration on pin 7 (rs232out), no doubt an arc from here across the chip...this was the main comm line pin.· I didn't have any MOV's/Tranzorbs or isolation on the line, just went with a cheapo IC that I could replace on spec.
Anyhow, no damage to anything else, but it is a pain....I'm looking in to gas arrestors (little blocks that have a chamber inside filled with some sort of ionizing gas...when the differential between your signal line and ground grows beyond it's threshold it ionizes and makes a short to ground and protects your gear).
TII is where we used to get them....I'll have to do some looking around!· These things will take multiple hits rather than one (for tranzorb/mov)....
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·
Steve
"Inside each and every one of us is our one, true authentic swing. Something we was born with. Something that's ours and ours alone. Something that can't be learned... something that's got to be remembered."
No obvious poofs or smoke, but enough energy came down the signal lines that the electronics died.
I was just walking in to the room where the electrical conduits come in to the building from the tower.· Big flash, boom and I saw an arc flash across the 90deg elbow in the conduit.· Uh...diapers please! haha
Anyhow, some of that energy went in to the ground where we have buried cable going to a logger/wind tower.· The comms got knocked out and I just got around to looking at it.· Here's a picture of the MAX232 chip.· Big chunk blasted out....note the discolouration on pin 7 (rs232out), no doubt an arc from here across the chip...this was the main comm line pin.· I didn't have any MOV's/Tranzorbs or isolation on the line, just went with a cheapo IC that I could replace on spec.
Anyhow, no damage to anything else, but it is a pain....I'm looking in to gas arrestors (little blocks that have a chamber inside filled with some sort of ionizing gas...when the differential between your signal line and ground grows beyond it's threshold it ionizes and makes a short to ground and protects your gear).
TII is where we used to get them....I'll have to do some looking around!· These things will take multiple hits rather than one (for tranzorb/mov)....
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
·
Steve
"Inside each and every one of us is our one, true authentic swing. Something we was born with. Something that's ours and ours alone. Something that can't be learned... something that's got to be remembered."