Is their anything that can help or save network equipment from a lightning strike. All this equipment is/was in my personal residence. House didn’t get hit but it was very close. Surge protector and equipment grounded . Lost 1/3rd of our can lights and 2/3 of our kasa switches. The outlet was the last one on the circuit but the gear was not plugged in to it, but same circuit.
Ouch, that looks bad. I’ve lost lots of equipment at my current office due to lighting strikes. I have equipment grounded. When it hits close I don’t think anything can stop it.
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That’s what I have read just wanting to check with others. On the plus side guess I’ll upgrade from the 7002 to the 6010/6011
The GCC looks pretty solid. I am evaluating one now for a client to replace their old router.
Reminds me of what my equipment on a specific tower looks like after a storm.
A UPS is your best bet, surge protectors never work. You can also install a surge supresser for your main breaker box.
I have a UPS on everything in my house, TVs, network, computers…
We have a whole home but everyone thinks it was so close that it jumped into the house (Like an emp), and didn’t come through the main feed.
Yes I need a ups just hadn’t bought one yet, sold the last house with all gear and ups in place. I kind of figured the ups would have got taken out also.
I just took another strike on a tower, lost around $900 worth of radios and switches. I wish I could figure out what is causing this tower to not ground.
Double check your grounding at the power entrance to the house. I have seen more than one become loose or for some reason the actual ground rod not providing an effective ground. I had a friend that poured concrete around the area where his main ground rod was and later covered the area as a carport. The actual earth dried out around the ground rod and he basically lost his ground. You can even add additional ground rods and try that. Years ago, I had similar lighting issues, and I installed a whole house surge protector in my panel and have only had one damaging strike in the past 20 years. When you get almost a direct hit, there is really nothing you can do. And… never, ever run ethernet underground. @BYW, I understand on a tower you may not have that opportunity, sometimes the ethernet must run up the tower. Good Luck with it.
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It’s a tower grounding issue. The soil here is bad, they didn’t run the rods deep enough. Sand and shell doesn’t have enough resistance.
Good grounding can be an issue in certain areas for sure. I knew of a telco central office that had to install a well with a copper plate that was kept submerged to provide a proper ground. That seemed a bit extreme, but they said it was required when they installed the first digital central office back in the 70’s.
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Funny, I’m surrounded by water… Go figure…
@bulen Have up considered Ethernet Surge suppressors? I use the Ubiquiti ones, but the only way for it to work, I have found, is to have one on each end of the cable. But that doesn’t mean one device on either end isn’t going to be fried. My Rocket Prism took a hit, but the switch was protected.
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When I was in the military, I was taught about lightning and how it travels on conductors. Lightning does not follow elbows or changes in direction, it will continue in the direction it’s flowing, even if there’s a path to ground that happens to be 2 ft away but actually behind where the connection is as water might travel. So if you want to ensure your panel ground or tower ground as it were will properly conduct a lightning strike, ensure that the ground wire itself is pointing in the direction to the ground rod, not clamped in the wrong direction. Make sure the wire is pointing towards ground. Lightning strikes won’t follow normal electricity path.
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A UPS offers some protection against power surges. It does not offer 100% protection. I went with an APC Smart-UPS model SMT1500RM2UC and a SurgeX SX-1115-RT to protect my network rack. Check that you house electrical panel is properly grounded.
we spend a ton on lightning protection and i still lost a UPS to it the other day. 7m for one UPS.
Lightning appears to make its own rules. Many years ago (I’m old) on an old tube type TV that had been hit by lightning, it did not blow a 3 amp fuse but blew a hole out in the side of a large power transformer on the other side of the fuse. Follow best practices and hope for the best is about all we can do. I have found no way to prevent damage if you get a direct hit.
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