Do you unplug your devices during a thunderstorm?

[cr@zydude]

Thunderstorms, what are those?

Sincerely,
Capetonian

I think that I've only heard thunder twice in 10 years in Cape Town.

 

[kolaval]

No, we have WiFi duh.

 

[kolaval]

ESD is the killer though. It all depends on how close you get to storms.

This was interesting.

 

[JvZa]

In my 40+ years on this earth i have only had lightning strike my car in the driveway (Fried all electronics), gone underground to the house and blow my UPS and router.
Lucky me standing in a puddle of water in between the house and the car.....just got a mild jolt. According to my wife i am charged up for another 40 years...

 

[Puffy_Nipples]

No, Eskom unplugs for me when the power goes out during the storm

 

[rh1]

I also still have a 40" Bravia bought in 2011 - still going strong.

Mine, I bought in 2009, still going strong.

 

[ebendl]

I don't, but sheesh my father in law just lost a bunch of stuff in a big thunderstorm:
- Gate motor
- Pedestrian gate power supply
- Camera NVR (the HD is fine)
- The screen that was connected to the NVR. It still powers on but doesn't find any input source
- The power supply to connected to the Huawei fibre ONT. Swopped it out with another and the ONT is fine
- The LAN port on his one TP-Link Deco. The WAN connected to the fibre ONT is fine, as is the WiFi on the TP-Link.
- A hub used to connect two IP cameras to the rest of the network. The other hub (where the TP-Link DECO was plugged into, is fine)
- One of his IP cameras, connected via LAN cable and to the hub that was damaged too
- The other IP camera connected to the same hub is fine


The one flaw in his system is that the IP camera is mouned directly to the steel frame underneath the corrugated iron car port, and I think it induces a LOT of surges this way that travels via the LAN cable and wreaks havoc in the rest of the network / house.

 

[Jean Claude Vaaldamme]

Well last year around this time lighting struck the pool pump and luckily insurance did not check that I connected pool straight to a plug in the house.
Lost Fridge, inverter, son's gaming pc, all routers and ont. Luckily insurance paid way more and everything was upgraded to much better.

 

[ebendl]

Ja, shielded cable that's earthed will help but ESD gets in anywhere. Nearby strike is all that's required. I lost an NVR PSU, 2 cameras and 2 network switches this way. A mate lost his starlink dish on the same night.

I myself had lost multiple ports on a POE switch due to a camera mounted on a steel structure. Tried shielding and earthing - no luck.

Eventually moved the camera to the wall of my house and it solved the problem.

 

[Herr der Verboten]

Do you unplug your devices during a thunderstorm?

Only my vibrators. No one wants a shockingly good time.

 

[Progenix Oj101]

Nope, but had a close call. The UPS recorded over 350v and went into protection mode - other than everything shutting down immediately, nothing lost (multiple PCs, printers, and audio equipment run off the UPS).

I have a cat that's scared stupid of his own shadow - his name is Sylvester as he's a splitting image of the cartoon cat, but we call him Silly for short as he really is dumb at times. When that lightning struck, he instantly and very politely shat a perfect donut of diarrhea on the floor for me to clean up

 

[Dimpie (JIGSAW)]

 

[brabham]

I live in Cape Town so, no.

 

[Goosfrabba]

Nope, just swear at the thunder/lightning and it stays away

 

[@ward57]

Do you unplug your devices during a thunderstorm?

No I don't, primarily because I live in Cape Town and thunderstorms are fairly rare here. So rare in fact that when the skies do rumble, I've got to take a minute to figure out where that's coming from.