2. home-theater
  3. 190687-131143

Lightening damage - any hope?

We had a violent electrical storm at my home a couple of days ago and some of my AV gear no longer even turns on. The damaged components are Sony Blu-ray player, Marantz AV Processor, AppleTV, Spectrum Cable box, Netgear router. It seems that the damage came in thru the Spectrum cable for my Internet service.. All of the damaged components were connected to my network via Cat6.

Curiously, the components that I had isolated with fiber converters (to lower the cable noise) were undamaged. That included my ML5505 integrated amp and my Aurender N200 streamer (thank goodness).

For the electrical geniuses out there is there any hope that the damaged components can be repaired from a spike coming in thru the ethernet cable? I'm rather surprised that these components won't even turn on.

Any insight. would be appreciated.

jhcjr
mikhailark
240 posts
 

Are you sure it was Ethernet issue and not power mains spike? It is pretty common for storms to cause voltage spikes. This is why I have surge protection for the entire home.

Now, have you checked fuses? They may have been blown.

jhcjr OP
25 posts
 

None of the damaged items have 'regular 'fuses like an amp has. I suspect they are mounted on the circuit boards. Any hints on what to look for on the boards to identify a mounted fuse?

The damaged items are probably not worth repairing, but I'm taking this 'opportunity' to learn a little more about them.

Thanks for the help.

upshift
73 posts
 

A little late to this thread but I identify with it.  Had a lightning hit last year, Hit a tree that was just 15 feet or so away from the underground electrical entrance.  Took out 2 TVs, 3 switches, 2 UPS, Router, and Bluesound box. Also took out the electrical meter and my solar system inverter.  What took out the TVs, Switches, Router, and Bluesound box was the LAN port.  Strangely enough the cable modem was ok. One of the UPS actually smoked.

My theory is that a large static electrical charge hit the LAN ports.  Most of them would power up but the LAN ports would not connect.  I have since added these devices to the incoming COAX and between the cable modem and the router:

LAN Lighting Suppressor

Coax Lightning Suppressor

I added the optical link between the router and Bluesound box mainly for noise reduction as it replaced a 50 foot ethernet cable run and for the protection.

Ethernet Media Converter

Fiber Patch Cable

 

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