Do lightning protectors really work?

[Peppercorns]

Yo Guys,

I'm pretty sure most of you have lightning protectors. So I was wondering if they had ever really worked 100% for you.

About a year ago, we had quite a bad thunderstorm and I was playing on my PC. (Yes, ok, i know it's stupid and all) Then there was a huge bolt of lightning and I heard a strange noise from my PC. It turns out that lightning had actually struck my lightning protector, which my modem had been plugged through (internal modem). Anyway, my modem blew and apparently I was really lucky as 9/10 times it usually fries the rest of your pc too

Anyway, have you guys ever had your protector put to the test?

 

[Scooby_Doo]

Well its never 100% but 1 million times better than with out it...

 

[Nokkie]

you guy's are not going to believe me but also about 2 years back i was bussy playing pc game while there was a strom brewing outside...

a few strikes and sound boom the power triped but wierdly while the power were off my pc was still running with full power on all the lights in the boks were stil on and the fans still running. do you think it could have been some sort of static charge? or that the pc captured the lighting strike?

wierd... I still don't even use a surge protector since then must get one still

 

[bdt]

I know of one time when the 380Vac powerlines outside a property crossed over/shorted ..and caused a MASSIVE surge: said surge took out most of the electronics and appliances (yes, fridge & nukem too) in the house ..and there was THAT smell in the air in the office where the boss's computer was also not working. Well, after fearing the worst, I tracked down the smell to the surge protector: it had bravely sacrificed itself and had failed open-circuit (the way they're meant to) and plugged the PC straight into the wall ..and it fired up, no problem at all.

Boss was HUGELY happy he had his surge protector and was more than happy for me to replace the one that had died. So, yes: I reckon that at the very least they can't hurt, but may well save your PC - and for what little they cost, that's huge.

 

[Pierre]

Actually, a pc psu needs to charge a dc reservoir from the AC supply, but I'd rather say that only some of your breakers went out, or if it was the earth leak that tripped, it could be that one of the plug circuits was not connected through the earthleak, and that made the pc keep on running.

The reason is simple. If for some magical reason the power might have gone through to the high voltage caps (dc tank), you will still need to have some supply to the control circuit, to get the switching going bla bla bla.........

In short, a pc can not work with a DC supply due to some details that will bore the cr@p out of most people. Static is not an alternating current, thus, it is DC.

PS: I never was a good teacher

<edit> A surge protector works. Period. It just wount cope to well with the millions of volts comming from lightning, but it will protect your electrical stuff to some extend.

 

[bdt]

Actually, a pc psu needs to charge a dc reservoir from the AC supply, but I'd rather say that only some of your breakers went out, or if it was the earth leak that tripped, it could be that one of the plug circuits was not connected through the earthleak, and that made the pc keep on running.

The reason is simple. If for some magical reason the power might have gone through to the high voltage caps (dc tank), you will still need to have some supply to the control circuit, to get the switching going bla bla bla.........

In short, a pc can not work with a DC supply due to some details that will bore the cr@p out of most people. Static is not an alternating current, thus, it is DC.

PS: I never was a good teacher

<edit> A surge protector works. Period. It just wount cope to well with the millions of volts comming from lightning, but it will protect your electrical stuff to some extend.

I've come back to this several times in apparently vain attempts to decipher your post Pierre; sadly, short of your <edit> addendum, no dice. Seriously, what ARE you trying to say here??

 

[Pierre]

you guy's are not going to believe me but also about 2 years back i was bussy playing pc game while there was a strom brewing outside...

a few strikes and sound boom the power triped but wierdly while the power were off my pc was still running with full power on all the lights in the boks were stil on and the fans still running. do you think it could have been some sort of static charge? or that the pc captured the lighting strike?

wierd... I still don't even use a surge protector since then must get one still

Eish! I replied to this........ Clear?

 

[PearlJam]

You also get different quality of lightning protectors. Out of proper experience i KNOW Clearline works and has never failed me. In my area lightning strikes is the norm when there is a storm. I will put money on the fact that if there is a storm there will be lightning coming through my telephone line. No problem since using the clearline.

PS. No affiliation with Clearline

 

[savage]

IMHO, I fail to see how a small little lightning protector, can take a lightning strike head on, and provide protetion. Can it protect against surges, yes, definately.

Can it protect against a direct hit by a lightning bolt, capable of powering a massive city for months to come. Most definately NOT. The power will be so much it will merely fry the resistor inside the protector and jump through it, sending a big spike to your PC regardless.

All that a lightning protector is really, is a current limiting resistor, limiting the flow of current to your PC, and sending the 'extra' current through the ground wire to /dev/null. It will be good to handle only so much, and then that will fail as well. It definately won't be able to handle the load of a lightning strike, and frankly, I don't cant even see how it can handle 20kV.

Perhaps these manufacturers of lightning protectors needs to make some data available on safety tests they tested. If these things really work, you should be able to hook your PC up to one of Eskom's main lines, without frying your PC (nevermind connecting it to a lightning bolt). I would *REALLY* love to see that...

 

[qwagga]

I am backing savage here. If a lightning bolt can "jump" 1km plus down the earth, a couple of millimeter or even centimeter in a protection device is not going to have a chance in hell.

I unplug everything, power, telephone line and even my connection to my DSTV dish.

 

[bdt]

IMHO, I fail to see how a small little lightning protector, can take a lightning strike head on, and provide protetion. Can it protect against surges, yes, definately.

Quite, you're definitely on the money here: against a direct, physical hit, no go. Hell, I've been living with (a client of mine) unable to connect to the Hyde Park MyWi tower 'cos it was down for a week from a lightning strike (that I know of ..YOU try to get hard info out of them!)

Can it protect against a direct hit by a lightning bolt, capable of powering a massive city for months to come. Most definately NOT. The power will be so much it will merely fry the resistor inside the protector and jump through it, sending a big spike to your PC regardless.

It's not a resistor, but a (metal oxide) varistor (or in the better ones, and depending on configuration up to 3 of them)

All that a lightning protector is really, is a current limiting resistor, limiting the flow of current to your PC, and sending the 'extra' current through the ground wire to /dev/null.

Ah, no: a varistor is a REALLY fast (they have to be, given the nature of the event they're made to cope with) shunt. At normal (i.e. below their trigger voltage) levels they "look" (electrically) like an open circuit, but when triggered will short out, say between live and earth wires. It would be silly to build something that will limit the current, it's better to just shunt it all to ground.

It will be good to handle only so much, and then that will fail as well. It definately won't be able to handle the load of a lightning strike, and frankly, I don't cant even see how it can handle 20kV.

Yes, too much incoming power and they do die: if you've got a good product, hopefully open-circuit. See here for one company's offering (sadly, not Clearline: their site seems to be down).

Perhaps these manufacturers of lightning protectors needs to make some data available on safety tests they tested. If these things really work, you should be able to hook your PC up to one of Eskom's main lines, without frying your PC (nevermind connecting it to a lightning bolt). I would *REALLY* love to see that...

Well yes, but GFL getting *that* data!

 

[qwagga]

I do understand that your reply is all in good spirit. However not everyone here is a Stephen Hawking. Resistor is not wrong.

It's not a resistor, but a (metal oxide) varistor (or in the better ones, and depending on configuration up to 3 of them).

Non-ohmic variable resistors are called varistors, just between the 2 of us. Resistor is just used by mortals that don't spend their life trying to understand the universe.

 

[Pierre]

I do understand that your reply is all in good spirit. However not everyone here is a Stephen Hawking. Resistor is not wrong.



Non-ohmic variable resistors are called varistors, just between the 2 of us. Resistor is just used by mortals that don't spend their life trying to understand the universe.

Or you can say its a metallish thingie that will test open, and appear useless, but as soon as the voltage goes over a certain amount it will "adjust" itself to a dead short, and save some electrical stuff in your house from overvoltage.....

Just thinking out loud here, since I had to explain to someone the other day, and he only had a dof look in his eyes untill I told him that story. People that is not technical don't really care about propper names and detailed diagrams when asking how something works.

 

[bdt]

To qwagga and Pierre: points taken. But:
- this community is a far more techincal than most, hence a (mostly) compatible audience
- I cannot abide the unnecessary dumbing down of technical terms (it's a geek thing)
- while the name varistor derives (in part) from resistor, it's wrong to think of a MOV on those terms: they're not made to be resistors in classical resistive terms, they don't behave that way and sloppy/loose thinking is a cancer that seeps into everything and is to be avoided (at all costs) ..if one cares enough to get things done correctly.

 

[Pierre]

To qwagga and Pierre: points taken. But:
- this community is a far more techincal than most, hence a (mostly) compatible audience
- I cannot abide the unnecessary dumbing down of technical terms (it's a geek thing)
- while the name varistor derives (in part) from resistor, it's wrong to think of a MOV on those terms: they're not made to be resistors in classical resistive terms, they don't behave that way and sloppy/loose thinking is a cancer that seeps into everything and is to be avoided (at all costs) ..if one cares enough to get things done correctly.

True, true. I just could not resist Thing is, although I totally agree with you, there is people out there (Especially at my work place) that don't care if you know every detail about how things work. If they sound interested, they don't want the geek to come and take over their life for a minute or 20. They ask for the basics. Actually this thread has completely derailed. The question was if it works, and not how it works, so I think what the threadder wanted was some true stories about how it saved you some bucks, instead of how the actual working of the device could save you some bucks, and then we took it over

 

[bdt]

Point of order: up at (my) post #4 I did, in fact (and actually!) reply on topic. It's just that when I see blatantly wrong/misleading/sloppy info I am compelled to react - and it tends to be somewhat quixotic in nature As to the civilian peasants/philistines that populate/litter the world: fuggem - while I am a (self-absorbed) geek, I'm also a person and not some mule/lackey/robotica/automaton that can be summoned at whim and switched on/off as they see fit.

No points for guessing that I work outside of mainstream employment!

 

[Pierre]

Point of order: up at (my) post #4 I did, in fact (and actually!) reply on topic. It's just that when I see blatantly wrong/misleading/sloppy info I am compelled to react - and it tends to be somewhat quixotic in nature As to the civilian peasants/philistines that populate/litter the world: fuggem - while I am a (self-absorbed) geek, I'm also a person and not some mule/lackey/robotica/automaton that can be summoned at whim and switched on/off as they see fit.

No points for guessing that I work outside of mainstream employment!

I did see that you did post to the topic (and somewhat went at me at number 6 for not reading all the posts yourself )

 

[scotty777]

well they work but some times they do fail to stop the surge or lighting. you see the truth is that nothing is 100% proof. it's like ifa tank was 100% bomb proof the russian's would have been f*&t... (cold war). so thats why 90% of the time they label this as "resistant" not 100% proof... ie lightening resistant not lightening proof... so yes there's a risk that it could fail to fail buuutttttt... if you're trying to explain that lightening blew your computer to insurance they will be happier and wont charge more premiums... so i would rather be safer with one than without out one and if you are insured it would cost you less

 

[AntiThesis]

So the general consensus here is:

1) They do indeed work and
2) It's better to have one than not, even if it doesn't work 100% against a direct hit.

Neat enough?

 

[PearlJam]

Just to give more meat to my earlier post. I moved into the house i am currently staying at and had two modems and a whole pc taken from my by lightning strikes (mild ones included). I have since using the protection gone through some of the worst lightning strikes (January 2006) in my area with no problem. I am quite high up and plenty of stone attracting the strikes. I am no engineer, can't explain it, but it works. 100% so far for me.