3 or 4 times in 45 years I've unplugged. I hear the thunder and the windows are rattling. I unplug. I was raised in Alabama and Texas as a kid..
I'm still careful around inland water too. The snake thing, it never leaves you.. I'm in the California Delta.. More likely to run into a feral pig than a bad snake..
Kinda fortunate here with lightning strike BUT they use to reek havoc with drilling equipment in the Sierra's. Lightning would strike a Mass and blow a few computers in the Cann buss. It's recommended to lay the Mass down if it's in a thunderstorm. OR unplug the computers. Everything else will survived.
So is the smoke causing the extra lightning in your area? It's like Mexico City Mexico, where I'm at.. You can't see a 1/2 mile, 1/2 the time.. Here..
Nasty smoke this year..
Regards |
If your electric circuit takes a lightning strike, no fuse or protection device is going to protect it. Lightning travels for miles in air, once it attaches to the grid, it’s going to ground, through everything connected. |
Your assessment is spot on perfect! I like the analogy of lifeboats, since that is just about the best possible way to describe it. It is important to understand the average lightening bolt has enough energy to lift the Titanic 6 miles from the bottom of the ocean and set it on a barge 5 feet above the water. We are talking millions of volts and hundred of thousands of Amps.
In addition, the design of surge protectors is not cookie cutter simple. There is as much philosophy in the design as science. IEEE has some test standards to meet which are very good. UL has some design codes to comply with as well, but both are trade offs. Sure, a good surge protector will save your stuff, but only when the lightening bolt is some distance away. The closer it gets, the more the lifeboat starts to leak. A direct hit to your house and your stuff is toast.
Yep, I totally agree with the warm up time. I had an Technics high end
analog
tuner that took four days to stabilize; it would just drift and drift and drift and drift... My old Spatial preamp took 6 weeks for the sound to really hit home and, gosh, we could measure that warm up in the lab, too!
Here in the Bay Area of CA, we don't get much lightening, when we do it is more of a novelty. Then again, I keep my expensive equipment turned "off" on the big stereo and the home theater, which has much older, so less expensive stuff, is the one that is "on" most of the time. Still, we shut the HT down at night.
So it really comes down to percentages and probabilities. If the probability of a lightening strike close by is high, I'd keep off and it unplugged and have the best surge protector money can buy and maybe go overboard and spring the money for a screen room built inside your stereo room. If it is low, then just off is probably okay with good surge protection. If it is extremely low, then your worries are also very low.
Now that being said, those damn lightening bolts don't come in mathematical order. In other words, you can shuffle a deck of cards the best you can and the probability of the first four cards you pull are four Aces is extremely low, about 1 in 6.5 million. The catch is, the probability isn't zero, and neither is the probability for those lightening bolts. |
Whoa, whoa, whoa. That is the reason for a ground rod, to shunt the over voltage to ground.. Nothing more.. IF you put up additional lightning rods as diverters to ground that helps in places where you can get clobbered..
Outside antenna and a TV suck.. You want to be careful there.. My Dad used a big ol double knife edge switch, One way was inside one way was outside. C-47 static strap breaker. LOL While hooked up, everyone jumping can get struck with lightning at the same time.. without that knife edge switch.. No ED issues with the boys, on the plane, if that happens.. LOL
Grounds all go to the same place, ONE ground pretty close to the main between the pole and YOUR domicile.
I mean didn't you watch the movie Frankenstein? :-) |
@oldhvymec, correct about the use of lighting rods. But a direct hit to your home electrical will still take out the surge protectors.
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My area has historically poor electric service, so I have multiple stages of protection, starting the service panel. But when we get these violent electrical storms, I pull the plug on my gear. I think that's the best protection, and I'm not going to listen to the system in the middle of a storm anyway.
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And here I thought I could raise the dead. :-)
I was just gonna hook it up to the neighbors front security door.. Bigger :-)
Waist not, want not.. me Mums.
Regards |
Just shut the breaker off, that is if you took the time to put the hifi on a seperate circuit. No need to unplug if the breaker is off... |
@audioguy, are you sure? Won't all that voltage from lightning jump the breakers and travel through all wiring? |
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Unplug it. A direct lightning strike can go everywhere.
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My house took a direct hit. The charge went straight to ground just like the others said. The heat from all those millions of volts expanded even the slightest trace of moisture into steam, exploding every bit of lumber in its path, the leftover heat bursting it into flames. The roof and most of one wall were demolished. Nothing but debris remained.
The surge protector did its job. The stereo was untouched. Not even the falling debris, not one speck on any of the components plugged into the surge protector.
If you believe a word of the paragraph above then your understanding of electricity makes you a prime candidate for a surge suppressor. Get the really expensive whole-house ones. They really work. Trust me.
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Storms are much more severe and unpredictable compared to the past so yes, just unplug it. |
I have a whole house surge protector.
And, I have 3 Niagara units with there built in surge protectors.
And...if lightning strikes are near I turn off the 3 breakers to my system and I still unplug.
When I am not home and aware of lightning strikes near my home, I also pray.
ozzy |
audioguy85Just shut the breaker off, that is if you took the time to put the hifi on a seperate circuit. No need to unplug if the breaker is off... My equipment is all on dedicated lines. Why you think current from a lightning strike couldn’t easily jump a circuit breaker? In my house, it’s more convenient to pull AC plugs that turn off circuit breakers. So this is all a moot point for me. |
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Just shut the breaker off, that is if you took the time to put the hifi on a seperate circuit. No need to unplug if the breaker is off.. We had a direct lightning strike. Hit the flashing on the brick chimney. Fried two breakers whereby the flipswitch was seized. Lots of other things zapped including a $2000 refrigerator. Stereo gear survived with a blown glass fuse. |
@millercarbon. Impressive damage.
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Ah yes, lightning is worse today than it was in the past {roll eyes}
I'm unplugged always as I run off batteries. While I was plugged in I had surge protection and never bothered to unplug. I cannot say if my surge protection would have been sufficient in the event of a strike, so best do what you feel comfortable with.
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We evacuated for Ida, so I unplugged everything.
There is no difference in my system, warmed versus just turned on. |
Well I think I will just continue to unplug. On the bright side, today's thunderstorms don't get here till about 5:30 p.m........Ugh |
I'm a little foggy, but wasn't there a famous song about this? Sure seem to recall the lyrics, riding out the storm....
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Just to add some salt to this topic, when lightening hits, you also get a EM Pulse that surges current and voltage in everything, whether it is unplugged or not. I'm not sure a lightening strike EMP will fry equipment close by though. |
if not better safe then sorry, then ok otherwise. |
I live in mid-central Florida which is not as bad as the Tampa area for lightning damage. Our HT system is always plugged into a decent surge protector which I had plugged into a GFI outlet in our enclosed porch that is also shared with our living room. We’ve never been struck directly but I’ve occasionally found upon arriving home that the GFI had been tripped but not the surge protector that was plugged into it. I can only assume the GFI responded much faster than the surge protector and was doing all the protecting since the TV always powers up once I reset the GFI. I thought that GFI’s only detect ground faults. A TV repairman once commented that we must not use our TV much since it showed no telltale evidence of power surges damage. So based on my observations could GFI’s detect other electrical malfunctions as well? Our kitchen and bathroom GFI’s have never been tripped. What is going on here??? Did we get a GFI on steroids?
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