Re: Lightning and computer?

In news:42683D24.1B02AC24@xxxxxxxxxxx,
w_tom <w_tom1@xxxxxxxxxxx> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

> A UPS adjacent to that ten foot earth ground rod would
> provide effective protection. Building wide UPSes typically
> includes the 'whole house' protector. Protection not found
> inside plug-in protectors. Somehow, these plug-in
> manufacturers want you to believe that $100 item does what a
> $5000 item does.
<snip>

Two things combined from all sorts of posts...

UNPLUGGING the PC from the wall in it's entirety WILL protect the PC from
damage should there be a spike. No if's and's or but's about it except in a
few rare exceptions... I may be mis-reading but I think it was you (the
person I'm replying to) who said that this is not the case. I'm probably
mis-reading something so don't take this personal please I just want to
clarify some few things and put them in basic English for all to understand.
Should the device be completely disconnected a strike from lightning will
not harm it (assuming this includes phone line disconnection) unless it
burns the house down or there's something called "ball lightning" which
should happen to pass through it directly. (It may very well do so as it's
going to "see" the held current in the monitor for instance and go to it as
it's the least resistance.)

*I double checked*

Comparing this:

"Ham radio operators would disconnect the antenna and suffer
damage. They would disconnect the antenna, put the lead
inside a mason jar, and still suffer damage. Then they
connected the antenna to an earth ground. Not just any
ground. Earth ground. No more damage. Disconnection is not
an effective solution."

I'm sorry but a PC hasn't got an antenna running into a dedicated room via
wires that would carry electricity into the room. Well, not true... I
suppose should this be one of the rare WiFi Broadband solutions (not popular
yet) or a satellite connection there's some risk but both are surely
grounded according to code in every state that I'm aware of. Comparing the
technology of the 60's and 70's to today is hardly going to equate properly.
Bear with me here and don't for one minute think that I'm disagreeing with
you.... I'm saying that the odds are so slim that it's a simple step that
they, the OP, can and should take to add an additional layer of security...
Beyond that, if there's ball lightning tooling through their office then the
PC is the last of their concerns...

The OP, in this question, is 99.9% likely to not be in this situation. If
they were in this situation there's still some slim chance that you're 100%
correct in that lightning could follow said lines and then after reaching
the end of direct conductivity arc to the nearest device with stored
electricity. Even still, in today's world, disconnection of the devices
should in a million to one chance work properly considering that the
lightning *SHOULD* follow the laws (danged non-law obeying lightning) and
take the path of least resistance and head straight for the ground which
should, in all cases, be Earth ground to a properly seated copper rod. (I've
heard advocation for various alloys that conduct better than copper and once
read a white paper on such but copper will, for all intents and purposes,
give as much protection as anyone is going to need in anything but a
non-fault situation in which much stricter methods should be used.)

Now to carry on... In one of my posts I mentioned having had to have my
whole house protected. I have MOSTLY passive solar with a half dozen panels
to provide electricity and a home designed to gain the benefits from the Sun
for heat and electricity. Living in the extreme environment that I do
requires this for the most part as the Sun, believe it or not, is much more
reliable during the Winter than the electricity provided by the power
company. People do expect their $100 dollar devices to act as mine. I'm
sorry but w_tom is completely correct. It cost me nearly $11,000 total to
create a stable power system here and most of that was equipment. The
electrician who installed it did it as much for free as he could (beer and
food plus his normal hourly wage divided by what ever seemed good at the
moment) to add an additional panel and a very large box that does stuff
that, to be honest, I have no idea what it does. I know it's big... I know
it tells me my current voltage in from BOTH the batteries and from the power
lines. It tells me which one I'm using at that specific point in time if I
can remember the buttons to press. It tells me how much it's corrected
itself by. It has a SCSI port on it so I'm told I can actually hook it to a
number of devices. Even with this device I use a UPS... I'm JUST a
home-user... If it was mission critical my sytem would be laughed at.
(Err... Actually? I don't truly know about that... It might be ALMOST
acceptable as I've a minimal of 72 additional hours from a generator that
kicks on when the wattage from both devices meets a certain level OR, if on
battery AND the telco power's out, will kick on at 50% if the house is
drawing who knows how much... I really need to read manuals...)

I'm sorry but w_tom's correct. You CAN'T get that for $100... You can't get
it for $50 at Wal-Mart... It doesn't work that way... Are MOST user's
adequately protected for the 99 percentile? Yes... If they follow a few
basic steps... Don't shirk on power supplies and the like... ;) Get 'em with
an insurance policy... No matter what though you can't be 100% certain even
with ground fault interupters, UPS, $200 surge protection, and sacrificing a
dead chicken while burning black candles. The options is ONLY to learn the
choices, decide how much protection you want, know that you'll NEVER be 100%
certain, find your budget, and design accordingly.

Remember... Get 'em with an insurance policy, keep the warranty, read it and
register it if it's required to use said warranty. That's the only way to
get even close to 100%...

<climbs off soapbox>

Galen
--
Signature changed for a moment of silence.
Rest well Alex and we'll see you on the other side.


.

Loading