Lightning Strikes in south UK Tonite

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

None on the local weather until tomorrow for a short spot around 1am - but I'll keep a look out. Quite breezy now with hazy blue sky - the humidity has dropped with the wind and it is rather pleasant - just as well as there is a beer festival to sample this afternoon 

But just looked at the BBC news and it looks like some parts of the country have been having quite a display..... we often say the weather in these parts is different from the rest of the country..... however  the mains is fluctuating slightly as the UPS protectors are kicking in sporadically - so there is something happening somewhere 

What is a mains ups protector, thought

anything that filters is a bad addition. Go easy on me Simon????

In June a few years ago our telephone line was hit by a lightning strike. Unfortunately, this was hard wired to the sky box, which was connected to my pre-amp input. The result was pretty catastrophic to anything that contained a processing chip. The final bill was about £6k! I must say that my insurance company (Hiscox) was very understanding and paid up Immediately.

The up-side is that my equipment all got a nice service and sounded better than ever.

So we can confidently ignore the bit in the manuals that recommends switching off during a thunderstorm.

I wonder how much else in the instructions for our black boxes is completely irrelevant? 

????

Geko posted:

In June a few years ago our telephone line was hit by a lightning strike. Unfortunately, this was hard wired to the sky box, which was connected to my pre-amp input. The result was pretty catastrophic to anything that contained a processing chip. The final bill was about £6k! I must say that my insurance company (Hiscox) was very understanding and paid up Immediately.

My phone line has been hit twice - the first time it killed my Unitiserve amongst other things. I now use optical cables instead of copper Ethernet to give isolation. 

Mike1951 posted:

So we can confidently ignore the bit in the manuals that recommends switching off during a thunderstorm.

I wonder how much else in the instructions for our black boxes is completely irrelevant? 

????

Wrong conclusion! Actually, switching off does provide protection from spikes on the mains, other than when sufficiently large to jump the conductor gap in the switch, as in a direct strike to mains wiring somewhere in the vicinity like the hit to a garage someone mentioned above. Latter will be far less common, so switching off is good advice. But better advice is unplugging, especially as from the insurance angle a loss adjuster is likely to be able to be able to see other damage proving the event, but not necessarily with a less severe spike. 

ChrisSU posted:

Geko posted:

In June a few years ago our telephone line was hit by a lightning strike. Unfortunately, this was hard wired to the sky box, which was connected to my pre-amp input. The result was pretty catastrophic to anything that contained a processing chip. The final bill was about £6k! I must say that my insurance company (Hiscox) was very understanding and paid up Immediately.

My phone line has been hit twice - the first time it killed my Unitiserve amongst other things. I now use optical cables instead of copper Ethernet to give isolation. 

That’s interesting given the UnitiServe (along with all current Naim products)  only supports twisted pair and RJ45 sockets... so there is no optical isolation.......

Also compliant Ethernet is specified (IEEE802.3) to 1.5kV impulse spikes or 1.5kV Vrms for a period of time, and 2.25kVdc for a period of time... if there was a surge greater than this entering your house then all wiring including mains as well as metal fitting and pipes  would almost certainly be affected.

Gazza posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Don’t know where this storm is supposed to be, here in EA we could really do with one to clear the air... very humid.

It got as far as Colchester, Simon, lots of lightening for hours, no thunder, and some heavy rain.

Still nothing... oh well you guys have had the fun 

Yes I heard there were fun and games down in Essex and something about lightning affecting the fuelling processes at Stansted airport... a friend was supposed to be travelling via there to Poland and her flight got cancelled.

Mike1951 posted:

So we can confidently ignore the bit in the manuals that recommends switching off during a thunderstorm.

I wonder how much else in the instructions for our black boxes is completely irrelevant? 

????

Wrong conclusion! "

Yes. I know... 

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Still nothing... oh well you guys have had the fun 

Don't feel left out Simon,  its so patchy;   I had nothing other than heavy cloud & a few flashes last evening,  but a road 5 miles away had to be closed because of floods blocked with idiot drivers trying their luck.     An hour later I was looking at an almost full moon & close by Jupiter in a clear but hazy sky 

I watched it develop on the 'pooter (sad life) from MK up to Birmingham;   BBC news this morning reports Edgbaston had 58mm in 1hour & 81mm over 12 hours.   10 miles away Coleshill had 3mm in 12 hours

Mike1951 posted:

 

Mike1951 posted:

So we can confidently ignore the bit in the manuals that recommends switching off during a thunderstorm.

I wonder how much else in the instructions for our black boxes is completely irrelevant? 

????

Wrong conclusion! "

 

Yes. I know... 

Sorry, dense first thing in the morning...      

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

ChrisSU posted:

Geko posted:

In June a few years ago our telephone line was hit by a lightning strike. Unfortunately, this was hard wired to the sky box, which was connected to my pre-amp input. The result was pretty catastrophic to anything that contained a processing chip. The final bill was about £6k! I must say that my insurance company (Hiscox) was very understanding and paid up Immediately.

My phone line has been hit twice - the first time it killed my Unitiserve amongst other things. I now use optical cables instead of copper Ethernet to give isolation. 

That’s interesting given the UnitiServe (along with all current Naim products)  only supports twisted pair and RJ45 sockets... so there is no optical isolation.......

Also compliant Ethernet is specified (IEEE802.3) to 1.5kV impulse spikes or 1.5kV Vrms for a period of time, and 2.25kVdc for a period of time... if there was a surge greater than this entering your house then all wiring including mains as well as metal fitting and pipes  would almost certainly be affected.

Yes, interesting about lack of optical isolation in Unitiserve. Does the Core (or other Naim black boxes) have optical isolation, I wonder?

Keith 

Having switched off and unplugged all audio and network gear for most of yesterday and switched back on around 6pm, I'm now thinking it's all sounding pretty good and the network seems to be running more quickly (copying 24 bit album from Mac to Readynas Duo was quicker than usual). Is this imagination or plausible?

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

ChrisSU posted:

Geko posted:

In June a few years ago our telephone line was hit by a lightning strike. Unfortunately, this was hard wired to the sky box, which was connected to my pre-amp input. The result was pretty catastrophic to anything that contained a processing chip. The final bill was about £6k! I must say that my insurance company (Hiscox) was very understanding and paid up Immediately.

My phone line has been hit twice - the first time it killed my Unitiserve amongst other things. I now use optical cables instead of copper Ethernet to give isolation. 

That’s interesting given the UnitiServe (along with all current Naim products)  only supports twisted pair and RJ45 sockets... so there is no optical isolation.......

Also compliant Ethernet is specified (IEEE802.3) to 1.5kV impulse spikes or 1.5kV Vrms for a period of time, and 2.25kVdc for a period of time... if there was a surge greater than this entering your house then all wiring including mains as well as metal fitting and pipes  would almost certainly be affected.

Simon, the lightning strike entered via the phone line, blew the BT socket to pieces, and wiped out an ISP router, an Airport Extreme and the Unitiserve, which were the only things wired at the time. Nothing else electrical was damaged.  I wanted to run network cables around the house, but thought that in a house in an exposed position, it might be worth having some isolation from the phone line, which runs above roof level before entering the house. 

Initially I used media converters and POF cables, which worked fine, but cluttered the house up with converters and wall warts. I have recently replaced these with three Catalyst switches and SFPs, which is neater. If Naim were to put SFP ports on their streamers and servers, that might be neater again, but what are the chances of that?

KRM posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

ChrisSU posted:

Geko posted:

In June a few years ago our telephone line was hit by a lightning strike. Unfortunately, this was hard wired to the sky box, which was connected to my pre-amp input. The result was pretty catastrophic to anything that contained a processing chip. The final bill was about £6k! I must say that my insurance company (Hiscox) was very understanding and paid up Immediately.

My phone line has been hit twice - the first time it killed my Unitiserve amongst other things. I now use optical cables instead of copper Ethernet to give isolation. 

That’s interesting given the UnitiServe (along with all current Naim products)  only supports twisted pair and RJ45 sockets... so there is no optical isolation.......

Also compliant Ethernet is specified (IEEE802.3) to 1.5kV impulse spikes or 1.5kV Vrms for a period of time, and 2.25kVdc for a period of time... if there was a surge greater than this entering your house then all wiring including mains as well as metal fitting and pipes  would almost certainly be affected.

Yes, interesting about lack of optical isolation in Unitiserve. Does the Core (or other Naim black boxes) have optical isolation, I wonder?

Keith 

The NDX (and presumably other streamers) use optical isolation, I assume as a way of isolating interference, but that isn’t going to help in a lightning strike. 

ChrisSU posted:

The NDX (and presumably other streamers) use optical isolation, I assume as a way of isolating interference, but that isn’t going to help in a lightning strike. 

100% correct;  my house had a direct hit on the TV aerial,  everything electrical in the house was destroyed, even a guitar amp that was not even plugged in.  The only survivor was my old Rega Planer-3

Because a few nearby properties have been hit over the years - one destroyed with fire -  I have assumed we live in a prone area - but halfway up a hill of open fields & trees, its not obvious why this would be - I now unplug radio, TV, phone+BB & most all power plugs.   

Yes, optical isolation is all very well, but there is no real substitute for unplugging, both mains and phone line as well as TV/FM aerials. 

but remember all complaint ethernet is galvanically isolated so as to remove the effects of common mode interference and ground loops from the network signal. Galvanic isolation often uses transformers or can use optical connection, but transformers typically offer better performance in a smaller space. Surges from lightning are handled differently

Chris I honestly would use twisted pair wiring for your ethernet in your house unless you have some very long distances to lay.. sure you twisted pair/phone line entering the house is above roof level - but for the most part a direct or nearby strike will as you say destroy the master socket (as it is designed to do with lightning surge protector that goes short circuit) but even so the lightning current will jump spaces and find the shortest path to earth, If you are in a particularly exposed area you can get specialised earthed phone /twisted pair line surge protectors - but even here a direct hit will still probably cause collateral damage either immediately or hasten the failure of components/devices in the house.

I suggest the only truly safest thing to do is unplug all mains devices with electronic components  and phone socket connections, aerial connections - and don't forget Satellite TV coax connections from your STB (which I suspect is quite a source of issues as people forget about it and many STB are not earthed)... then any induced voltages in your ethernet wiring through the ionised air should be dealt with unless you are really unlucky assuming your devices are ethernet compliant 

We had a very close hit yesterday evening. A sizzling zap with a simultaneous CRACK! which,. along with the briefly blinding light, nearly knocked us off the sofa in shock. We were already unplugged. I've only witnessed one direct hit which was on the roof of the building I worked at in London. Dozens of blown pieces of equipment and damaged 13 amp sockets. I saw flames and sparks shoot out of one socket when the lightning hit our roof. Not the sort of thing easily forgotten or treaded lightly.

So left my system off all weekend, switched it back on last night thinking the sun is back, only to be sat at work watching it pour with rain and the occasional lightning 

I was on a via ferrata route in the Dolomites, hanging off a rock outcrop when it started raining like a female dog. According to the rest of my group who were a little below me, a lightning bolt hit the steel cable about 50m up from me. It was, erm, a memorable experience which I’ve filed under ‘Terrifying, try to avoid in future’.

Mark

Today (Thursday) looks like you need to be prepared to unplug everything if you live in the southern half of UK.   Lightning strikes aside  aside,  the potential for flash flooding in prone areas is high.   

Interesting.. forecast for the Suffolk coast is breeze and mist with drizzle on and off throughout the day... we might need the weather forecasts a little more specific perhaps? The southern half of the UK is everything south of approx York is it not Mike? 

Oh no, I'd only just plugged everything back in yesterday after a few days unplugged.  A look at the BBC weather site for this area shows thunder and lightning practically all day.

Oh no, i replugged everything again this morning 

I wonder if we should sing along to the Hokey Cokey whilst pulling our plugs in and out..

for that I’ll probably get struck by lightning walking to the car....