Hello to all of you, its been awhile… hope you are all well. Back in May my house was struck by lightening and it fried my network and most of the circuits. It has been a frustrating and expensive ordeal, but I now have 95% of it repaired. Got my GF reconnected this morning and will be able to start being creative again.
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Welcome back!
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Yike! What a bummer. Glad you’re back!
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glad you are back up and running, looking forward to what you make.
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Glad the GF was spared! Mine is never plugged in unless it’s being used. Lightning storms around here are all too frequent. I have always had expense UPS devices for the necessary electronics, but don’t even trust those to protect the GF. If a-storm’s-a-comin, it’s unplugged (although it also was if simply not in use…)
I don’t trust the switches on power strips, either. I have lost electronics that were plugged in with the switch off.
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Sorry to hear of your ordeal. Hopefully life will be back to normal soon.
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honestly, the surge protection on consumer power strips is basically useless. i’ve seen many studies over the years that confirm that. they’re basically just a way to plug more things into an outlet.
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well that just sucks all around. but glad you’re back.
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I do the same!
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Wow!
Glad you’re back up and running. My childhood home had a lightening rod, but I don’t think I’ve seen once since…maybe I’ll look into that!
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If it’s advertised as a “power strip” then it generally doesn’t contain any surge protection at all. Real surge protectors will be labeled as such. But they cost more and most people want whatever’s cheapest, so most stores barely stock actual surge protectors and fill their shelves with those power strips that are glorified extension cords.
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Many power strips I’ve owned advertised themselves as being surge protectors against lightning, and I did pay more for them. After losing a couple to strikes, I opened them up and found they just used cheap metal oxide varistors (MOVs), and or transient voltage suppression (TVS) diodes. All the strips that led to dead electronics had those devices blown out.
At one point I bought a rather expensive version that was just one in, one out, with a fair-sized box. I had devices hooked up thru it get zapped as well, but I don’t recall taking that one apart. That’s when I switched to UPS devices instead, around the very late 90’s.
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So glad it was just your network that got fried and not your house!! Glad you’re back!
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even the ones listed as surge suppressors aren’t that effective against a serious surge.
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Welcome back! That must’ve been scary having your house struck by lightening. Were you home at the time? We get a lot of lightening here as well. There’ve been times it has been instant lightening/thunder at the same time and shakes our 2-story house. It has hit a tree on our property though. But I’ve never even thought of unplugging my GF. Guess I’d better do that, especially since we’re in for a good week of electrical storms this week. At any rate, glad you’re back and up and running!
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One time we had a strike, all the CRT TVs went wonky, the tubes were magnetized so all the colors were off… We were mostly Sony, including computer monitors - those that weren’t Sony had a degauss function at power-on, so they were OK after a couple of power cycles. The ones that weren’t, I got a big magnet and waved it over the screens myself.
Later we discovered a bunch of holes in the yard, like there had been little explosions. Turned out, the previous owners had buried a wire for a dog fence, and the lightning had cause that to explode all around the perimeter of the yard. It also came in to the garage, we’d never seen it, but it blew out sections of the garage floor and wall as well.
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Wow, never would have thought of a dog fence doing that. Must’ve been like watching explosives go off at a mining site! (Which I have seen when I worked at the gold mine - fascinating!)
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wow glad you are back.
our last house was struck. tore up a whole lot of things. tv’s network gear, security system blew the chimney apart, and the outside AC unit. fun times.
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wow that sounds a little overachievey right there.
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Glad you’re back and all is gettin back on track.
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