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Inssomniak
The Glitch
Premium Member
join:2005-04-06
Cayuga, ON

Inssomniak

Premium Member

Nasty lightning strike.

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We had our worst wide area lightning storm this year come thru a couple nights ago.
Some Pics.

Rhaas
Premium Member
join:2005-12-19
Bernie, MO

Rhaas

Premium Member

Yowza. Customer location I take it?

Inssomniak
The Glitch
Premium Member
join:2005-04-06
Cayuga, ON

Inssomniak

Premium Member

said by Rhaas:

Yowza. Customer location I take it?

Yeap, surprisingly so far this is the only call for damage, I guess it all ended up at this prem. :/
aereolis
join:2003-06-12
Brampton, ON

aereolis

Member

said by Inssomniak:

said by Rhaas:

Yowza. Customer location I take it?

Yeap, surprisingly so far this is the only call for damage, I guess it all ended up at this prem. :/

I guess all the others were grounded well

Semaphore
Premium Member
join:2003-11-18
101010

Semaphore to Inssomniak

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awesome
sparky007
join:2011-08-25
Phoenix, AZ

sparky007 to Inssomniak

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NICE!!!!!

Since you still have a wall... I'm guessing the place didn't burn except what's shown in the picture..

Got lucky.....

Inssomniak
The Glitch
Premium Member
join:2005-04-06
Cayuga, ON

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Inssomniak

Premium Member

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The floor and the back of the desk are burned, and this is after the customer cleaned up everything she could. She showed me pictures of the "before" and it was a black mess everywhere.. Never seen anything like it and Ive been working outside as a telephone/cable/and now WISP owner my whole life.

Outside CPE antenna, router, voip ATA, power injector, set top box, computer, TV, Outside TV antenna, misc power bars and cords, the connectors to all the cat5 cables all turned into charcoal.
TheHox
join:2012-05-31

TheHox

Member

Who is on the hook for the damages? You/the wisp or her/her insurance?
thewisperer
Premium Member
join:2008-01-16

thewisperer

Premium Member

said by TheHox:

Who is on the hook for the damages? You/the wisp or her/her insurance?

God is on the hook: but good luck collecting
voxframe
join:2010-08-02

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Holy shitballs. I've seen a switch (RB-250GS) blow across the room (Sadly my own bedroom at 3AM) but it didn't leave any markings like that.

That's nuts!
staregazer
join:2006-12-15

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Is this one of those High Gain Antenna's with a 15 db antenna and RTL8186 radio card or was it an enclosure kit for a different type of radio?

nunya
LXI 483
MVM
join:2000-12-23
O Fallon, MO

nunya to Inssomniak

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Was everything grounded / bonded per the manufacturers instructions?

davidg
Good Bye My Friend
MVM
join:2002-06-15
00000

davidg

MVM

that looks to be a direct strike, even proper grounding/bonding would not have helped with this gear. There just was not large enough components to direct the strike. It would matter ina nearby strike, but direct hits no.

I've seen 100' of speaker cable evaporated before and leaving nothing but the staples in the wall. Lightning hit the antenna and fiberglass rained down everywhere. came down thru the line into the radio and looped toward the speaker. It even blew the outlets from the boxes and they left marks on the other wall of the room. funny thing was the little 6" loudspeaker outside was fine!
wirelessdog
join:2008-07-15
Queen Anne, MD

wirelessdog

Member

said by davidg:

that looks to be a direct strike, even proper grounding/bonding would not have helped with this gear.

I see no evidence that the lightning hit the antenna. I see plenty of evidence that a power surge occurred which is why nunya's question is a valid one.
LLigetfa
join:2006-05-15
Fort Frances, ON

LLigetfa

Member

There is mention of fried TV bits so the TV coax could have been the point of entry.

Inssomniak
The Glitch
Premium Member
join:2005-04-06
Cayuga, ON

Inssomniak

Premium Member

We never found the entry point or where it hit. Customer says it hit his steel roof but can't find any marks. The tv and CPE antennas were installed on an old standalone tower that was not in any way grounded. It seems that the surge left the house via TV coax and cat5 and blew the antennas up from the inside. ?
Inssomniak

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said by staregazer:

Is this one of those High Gain Antenna's with a 15 db antenna and RTL8186 radio card or was it an enclosure kit for a different type of radio?

It used to be . It was a Mikrotik 711 board now.

davidg
Good Bye My Friend
MVM
join:2002-06-15
00000

davidg to wirelessdog

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did not say it was direct to the CPE antenna, just that it was a direct hit to the location. you don't see that kind of damage from it hitting a tree in the yard, only from it hitting something with a direct metallic path inside. Could be the AC line, Coax, or CPE. Once it comes in on one it will try to go out all ground points, and I have yet to see a house with proper bonding of CATV/Telco/Power that is up to spec for lightning. They generally are only done to human safety spec, which handles far less current than lightning can provide.

Semaphore
Premium Member
join:2003-11-18
101010

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Sorta similar; saw a strike that caused 100 feet of clothesline _wire_ evaporate. Leaving only the nylon sheath in 1' chunks in a nice straight line right to the house.... which pointed very nicely to where the lighting blew the wall switch and electrical box out of the wall and across the room.
lutful
... of ideas
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join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON

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said by davidg:

that looks to be a direct strike, even proper grounding/bonding would not have helped with this gear.

I have a lot of experience with equipment in a country that has lightning storms almost every single day during the monsoon season. It is quite easy to protect the INDOOR stuff against direct strikes using proper OUTDOOR grounding path that can divert 40kA-100kA strike current. A simple example shown above. Generalized for coax and PoE: »Re: Best practice generalized from Motorola/Alvarion docs

Typical grounding methods reduce the current carrying capability far below 20kA, which is the minimum to protect against a "nearby" strike like what the OP experienced. That strike was probably 250 meters away based on the damage.

Sufficient voltage was induced on the PoE cable run, but there was no low impedance path to ground. Other locations which use similar setups WILL be damaged at some point in the future. It is just a matter of probability which is very low in Canada and much of the USA.

davidg
Good Bye My Friend
MVM
join:2002-06-15
00000

davidg

MVM

yes but this does not look to run anything more than CAT5 from inside to outside. little POE arrestors(and the CAT5) evaporate under those type strikes. I too have lots of experience dealing with this, better than 20 years in commercial/public safety comms systems install and repair has shown me more lightning than the avg person will ever see.

The pic you have looks like a decent arrestor mount, better than what many folks do for sure. I'm R56 certified so I always like when people at least take grounding seriously. My comment above was simply that in this strong of a strike the radio and its connecting pieces did not have enough mass to divert the energy even if properly grounded.

Inssomniak
The Glitch
Premium Member
join:2005-04-06
Cayuga, ON

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said by Semaphore:

Sorta similar; saw a strike that caused 100 feet of clothesline _wire_ evaporate. Leaving only the nylon sheath in 1' chunks in a nice straight line right to the house.... which pointed very nicely to where the lighting blew the wall switch and electrical box out of the wall and across the room.

I saw this once too, You can see the black burn on the tree, then it leaves the tree about 9 feet up and jumps to a 4x4 post out in the yard, travels down the clothes lines and evaporated 3 feet of the other 4x4 post at the house end into nothing but splinters.

tigerpaw509
join:2011-01-19

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You cant stop lightning period.You can protect against it but thats all you can do

nunya
LXI 483
MVM
join:2000-12-23
O Fallon, MO
·Charter

nunya

MVM

said by tigerpaw509:

You cant stop lightning period.You can protect against it but thats all you can do

You can - if you are willing to pay enough.

We certainly can't control lighting, but we can offer it suggestions. Following code minimum requirements / manufacturer specs is a good start.
While everyone balks and says things like "you can't do anything about a direct hit", the reality is that most of the damage doesn't come from direct hits.
I'm always amazed at how little concern is given to proper bonding / grounding by many WISP operators.

hawk82
join:2001-04-26
centralmaine

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Years ago I worked at a WISP. One of repeater sites took a direct hit and the end results looked somewhat similar to this. We had our gear mounted around the 90' level of a 140' Rohn 60g tower that was owned by the PoCo. The PoCo had an omni at the top and I think it took the direct hit. Their heliax was bonded at the antenna, at the bottom of the tower, at the entrance to the hardened radio bldg/shed, and inside too. Didn't matter, lightning went through all of that. Blew out their radio and left some nice scorch marks on the telco rack where they had their equipment mounted. Also blew a 100A fuse on the primary wire on the utility pole at the street at the bottom of the hill. We lost an Orinoco router and the battery backup it was connected to, if I remember right. I can almost remember the smell of the shed when I opened the door just after the lightning strike. I also had to direct the PoCo bucket truck up the hill, guiding him to avoid ripping down the low hanging guy wires (not our hill or towers).
lutful
... of ideas
Premium Member
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON

lutful

Premium Member

said by hawk82:

One of repeater sites took a direct hit and the end results looked somewhat similar to this.

If the end result was similar, it was certainly not a direct hit. I estimated strike point for this particular case to be about 250 meters (800ft) away.

I arranged triggered lightning experiments a few years ago where you fire a hobby rocket trailing a grounded conductor into promising thunderclouds. Typical WISP radio or antenna essentially evaporates by the (lower intensity) direct strike created by such experiments.

Properly installed air terminals and/or aerial conductors allow high value outdoor equipment to survive a direct strike. All cables need to pass into a Faraday cage enclosure placed in the middle of the protected zone, with robust lightning surge protectors mounted on the outer surface of the cage, and another set of residual surge protectors inside the cage.

Inssomniak
The Glitch
Premium Member
join:2005-04-06
Cayuga, ON

Inssomniak

Premium Member

I've had a couple direct hits to omnis over the years (pics of antennas are somewhere on this site). One was a cheap super pass antenna that was a melted glob mess of PVC. The other was a fiberglass that had a hole burned in it. Took most of the equipment with it each time.
voxframe
join:2010-08-02

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LOL Most of the omnis that I've seen hit look like daffy duck's shotgun when someone rams a cork into the end and it explodes outwards.
lutful
... of ideas
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join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON

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said by Inssomniak:

I've had a couple direct hits to omnis over the years (pics of antennas are somewhere on this site). One was a cheap super pass antenna that was a melted glob mess of PVC.

I recall that photo.

Only because so many WISPs insist their antenna took a "direct hit" ... if the antenna melted or split, but you can still see the material, it was NOT a direct hit. Above photo shows many faint streamers, like tentacles, going miles away from the "direct hit" ... it was one of those that went through the antenna.

The current flow is a fraction of the main strike, but still enough to burn/melt/split typical antennas.