The EVIL and INSIDEOUS EFFECTS of Lightening Strikes!

[picky]

[li] {In a very deep voice:} M-M-MUW-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAA! [li] Scared, yet? LOL [6] I know that some of you have had experience with lightening striking close to your homes and maybe even some direct hits. I don't have to tell you of the terrible outcomes that such an event can unleash; fires, zapped equipment and even death. The other day, I thought our Small House Theater had become another statistic in lightening strike history.

While we were enjoying a week's vacation up at Houghton Lake, in Northern-Lower Michigan, I called my next door neighbor mid-week who was keeping an eye on our place for us to ask him how things were going back home. He said that everything seemed to be fine, but we'd had a terrible electrical storm at home the night before and there were so many lightening strikes close to our homes that it prompted him to do a walk-through of our house, just to make certain that everything was alright. He gave me the thumbs-up and said he did not see anything obvious wrong. I was relieved to hear that as we'd also had a doozie of a storm at the lake we were at, which is about 195 miles north of our home. I thanked my neighbor and felt better knowing that everything back home was okay. Or, was it?

We'd planned to hold a huge divorce party for one of my wife, Verna's close girlfriends on Saturday, July 12th (last weekend). That is one week from the day we arrived back home after staying at the lake. During that week, I had spent all of my time getting our back yard ready for the party as we were expecting close to 50 people and it would be held outside, with most everything set up in our big garage, just in case it rained. So, during that week of preparations, I didn't even venture into our basement's theater for anything except to pass through it on my way to the other rooms down there. The morning of the party, I went down to the theater to mop the floor and dust everything just to make sure it was nice and clean and presentable as I figured a few guests may wish to have a theater demo because they’d not seen the place before. When I got downstairs, I pressed the work lights button of my wall-mounted, automated lighting controller and absolutely NOTHING happened! "OH, NO!” I thought to myself. After pressing all of the other buttons I realized that none of the 11 separate zones of lighting were responding to the commands I was sending them via the controller. The controller was illuminated as expected as seemed to acknowledge each button press but the commands weren't getting to the automated dimmers which talk to one another via the household wiring and the X10 system. I didn't have time to troubleshoot the system as the party was only a few hours away. I tried to reprogram one zone and it did not respond. So I ran the theater that night by adjusting the 11 zones of lighting manually and simply left it that way. The party and demos went just fine. So I resolved to worry about it after the party.

The system in question here is the Lightolier, Compose PLC system. (Lightolier is a Phillips company) which I installed 4 years ago. It has been problem-free ever since it was originally installed with 8 zones. I added 3 additional zones this past winter. On Sunday, I tried reading my system's instructions and it seemed as if everything I had attempted, failed to work. I figured that one of those lightening strikes must have zapped my controlled and now I'd have to order a new one for about $100 bucks plus shipping. I was VERY thankful that I always remove the theater system from the power line grid and disconnect the cable from it any time we are gone or when there is an electrical storm in our area or the damage could have been more extensive than just the lighting controller! Our cable system is heavily-grounded outside the house (4-foot copper-clad steak) and inside (cold water pipe).

On Monday, I called the technical service rep at Lightolier and he seemed to be very familiar with the symptoms I was describing. He said that his hunch was that the controller simply had its "brains" scrambled a bit by the close lightening strike and told me that the digital address probably got changed. All I had to do was to check the binary address of the controller and compare that to the zone station addresses. The addresses need to be to same in order for the stations to receive the controller's commands. So last evening on Tuesday, I had time to check the system out and sure enough, the addresses were mismatched! I reset the controller to the factory default address and as sure as day, all of the other zones began to respond to all 5 scene commands! All of my programming was still intact and that one phone call to tech support had just saved me about a hundred bucks!! Man, were we ever lucky! Had I know about this before, I could have reset the system and had it functional again in 5 minutes; in plenty of time for the party!

So, the next time something in your house seems to have gotten zapped by lightening, static, alien spacecraft or whatever; don't give up right away. You just might be able to salvage it. This also speaks loudly on the merits of disconnecting your home theater equipment form the power line, antennas and cable any time thunderstorms threaten. Had my theater system gotten zapped too, I stood to loose thousands of dollars of equipment. And sure, some of us are covered by the insurance policies from our homeowners insurance or from the warranty on our Power Line Conditioner equipment that is supposed to protect everything. But, I consider having to replace all of that gear a huge hassle and inconvenience. Also, much of the equipment cannot be replaced as it is no longer made, such as my wonderful, cherry RF-7s for example. I highly suggest to you all: If there are thunderstorms nearby, unplug that system of yours from the antenna, cable and power grid. -Glenn

Lightolier's Compose PLC Controller System:

[colterphoto1]

Thanks for the warning and admonishment.

Sounds like they have a great Tech Support team at Lightolier! I'll use them if I ever get to do a theater.

What do you use for protection on your main system?

[picky]

Michael: Lutron makes a good lighting controller system, too BTW.

My projector is a Sharp Vision XV-Z9000-U DLP in a ceiling mounted position. The projector is protected by the same Power Line Conditioner as the rest of the theater; a Tripp Lite LCR2400 20-amp, rack mount unit. The projector is aimed at a 78" Stewart Filmscreen, Grayhawk ScreenWall with Velux no-glare frame coating.

[JJkizak]

There is approximately 34 quadrillion watts of power in the average lightning bolt. The width of the plasma stream is on the average 1" in diameter. In a recent lightning strike to a huge oak tree 30 feet from our house all of the bark on the bottom 20 ft of the tree was blown off. The 4 ft diameter tree was vertically sectioned in quarters from the top to the bottom. Several 1" diameter 10 ft long snake like crystallized quartz-like projections connected the tree stump to the septic tank metal 4" diameter drain pipe. The bolt travelled up the pipe to the house and melted the aluminum siding, blew out all the circuit breakers in the electrical panel, wiped out the security system control, monitor, and battery and all of the sensors on that side of the house. The Denon receiver was also toasted and wasn't turned on. The upstairs computer modem and telephone was also toasted. The well pump 88 ft down was also blown to smitherenes.

I was standing in the kitchen eating a donut when the lightning struck and I'll tell you what, that was a real pants crapper. When the stump was removed we found the melted "snakes" connecting to the septic pipe. Had to get a new Denon Receiver, phone, modem, security system, well pump, and siding. And tree removal showed the perfect quartering right down the middle.

Lightning always wins, humans always loose.

JJK

[Islander]

Lightning always wins, humans always loose.

Sounds like you were pretty "loose" for a second after that bolt hit. "Excuse me while I go upstairs and change my shorts..."

[JJkizak]

I forgot to mention, of all things, the intensity and volume of the sound of the lightning bolt. Lets' see---34 quadrillion watts through a 1" diameter wire in about 1 second, I don't know if my K-horns can handle that kind of nirvana. I believe some talented person can draw a cartoon of this incident.

JJK

[billybob]

Yes it is a good idea.

When installing surge protector/filter w/ phone line protectors, and other devices, I have witnessed ongoing events. And while away from the Hacienda, along w/ customers, a quick disconnect was an answer. At the very least for peace of mind. Mind you, it can still be hit, so I gave it a wide berth anyway.

In 1 instance, a strike occured to a decent protector. It exploded into peices, but saved their stereo/sat/TV system. They replaced the protector for free, of course.

[skonopa]

Lightening is indeed nasty!

Take this bit of news from the local area, where a 23 year-old that just graduated from UMW here in Fredericksburg was struck and killed by lightening while jogging on the beach in Virginia Beach over the 4th of the July weekend.

But personally, I've had run into some bad luck with Lightening myself.

Last summer, while I was away in Wisconsin and Indiana, I came home to find I had not internet access and the phones were not working. Turned out from talking with my neighbers, there were some really nasty storms that came through the area while I was away. Turned out my cable modem was taken out as well as the modem that was built in my DirecTV/UltimateTV reciever got zapped. I thought I unplugged everything, but apparently neglectied to unplug the cable from my cable modem as well as the phone line from the DTV reciever. The reciever itself still worked, fortunatly, but in the end, gave me an excuse to upgrade to a newer High-Def capable model. Unfortunatly, ended up dropping $80 to get a new cable modem (as I owned my own and was not renting one from the cable provider).

Now, just this past month, my newer HR-20 reciever really started to act up. I am thinking that these storms that kept hitting this area through the beginning of June finally gave it grief and it just upped and went kaput on me. I ended up having to call DirecTV and they sent me one of the even newer HR-21 models (which did not have OTA tuner, since I get the local channels off the antenna, especially since the HD is much better quality, so I fussed at them and they sent me, for free, the AM-21 OTA module!) I've since put it on a UPS (since I also have a 1-terabyte external drive hooked up to it).

As for the shorts crapper moment, I was over at local pizzeria getting something to eat right near my place and one of these infamous storms came through the area. Friggan lightening struck a light pole in the parking lot right in front of the pizzeria! Holy crap that was friggan loud, plus I could see the sparks come flying out of the pole! Good thing there was nobody out there at that moment trying to either get to or come in from thier car!

[DrWho]

Copper clad steak??? That must be quite the grill you have in the backyard [][A]

[picky]

Copper clad steak??? That must be quite the grill you have in the backyard

Doc: Yeah, it is quite a grill and probably gets hot enough to melt those "copper steaks" (LOL) but, the steaks Michael Hurd brought down from Canada in Aug of 2006 were still bigger! LOL Those enormous steaks made my grill's 590 square inch cooking area look tiny! [:S]

[dtel]

Glad it worked out there Picky, it could have been much worse.

[jbsl]

I always uplugg the tv or stereo from the wall when I am done and plug it back in when I am ready to use it. It takes seconds to do and don't have to worry about it getting zapped if I am not home. If I know there are storms then I don't use it and make sure everything is unplugged.

I have spent too much time and money on this hobby to let it go up that way and even then it could still happen.

[JJkizak]

If the lightning is close enough removing the plug will do no good if the house is blasted to smitherenes. "Ball" lightning just don't care either.

JJK

[jbsl]

If the lightning is close enough removing the plug will do no good if the house is blasted to smitherenes. "Ball" lightning just don't care either.

JJK

I am sorry to hear about your house. Yeah when that happens there is not much you can do.

But not every lighting strike is going to be one that will blast the house to smitherenes but can do damage to anything plugged into the outlet. If the lighting is not close enough to trash the whole house it might help(might not) to have the stereo uplugged. It only takes a few extra seconds to do anyway.