our GNSS network was hit by lightning last week.?ÿ Our choke ring antenna and gnss sensor were fried and the surge entered our network and took down some phones and a wide format printer plus a POE switch. Insurance company sent a forensic electronics engineer down from NJ on day 7 to verify it was lightning.
Not sure, but I think we are back up and running.?ÿ Still need to test the equipment.?ÿ Kudos to Leica's network group and a local contractor to help get the GNSS network back up for work on Tuesday.?ÿ Lost a weeks work because of this plus my time dealing with Clients, Insurance Company and vendors.
Lighting does crazy damage - no logic to explain how and what happened.
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Glad no one got hurt.
no logic to explain how and what happened.
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It's came as a real shock I'm sure!!
I've lost 2 large format hp plotters to lightning. The END of the line gets it. We installed an 8' ground rod right outside the office.?ÿ
I don't know if it would or could help, but maybe some welding rods or lightning rods with their own ground might help.?ÿ
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The goal with lightning is to give it an easier path to ground than through your equipment.?ÿ An antenna line should have a several-turn coil of cable where it enters the building, for instance, because the coil represents an impedance in its path.
I've seen some really crazy lightning damage from my days with outside plant telephone work.?ÿ This includes a porcelain toilet (unoccupied) that was sheared at the floor and blown through the ceiling by lightning. Lightning strikes are strange can be devastating, especially for electrical equipment.?ÿ While making sure there is adequate 'grounding' is a good step for protection, it's never fool proof.
Most lightning in a thunderstorm is "negative lightning".?ÿ This means a positive charge from the clouds seeks (and finds) a negative field in which to discharge (balance the difference in charges).?ÿ 9 out of 10 lightning strikes are probably negative lightning.?ÿ But "positive lightning" is not only possible, it can be more damaging and unpredictable than just a positive charge seeking a ground.
Even though it's inconvenient the best insurance is still to completely disconnect any equipment during a storm.
our GNSS network was hit by lightning last week.?ÿ Our choke ring antenna and gnss sensor were fried and the surge entered our network and took down some phones and a wide format printer plus a POE switch. Insurance company sent a forensic electronics engineer down from NJ on day 7 to verify it was lightning.
Not sure, but I think we are back up and running.?ÿ Still need to test the equipment.?ÿ Kudos to Leica's network group and a local contractor to help get the GNSS network back up for work on Tuesday.?ÿ Lost a weeks work because of this plus my time dealing with Clients, Insurance Company and vendors.
Lighting does crazy damage - no logic to explain how and what happened.
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We had several antennas lost on our network across Georgia years ago. ?ÿWe lost a couple receivers. We learned very quickly to install lightning suppressors if thats the technical name in the antenna cable lines and ups and such so receiver and routers might survive. we were pretty lucky as we were not down long in any given station. ?ÿBut looking at a zephyr geodetic after lighting on the inside is a site to see. I am no longer there but before the recession we had a rate of over 98% of being up and running 24/7 365 and that included time for updates and rebooting servers etc. ?ÿand weather related outages at any given station. ?ÿI don??t know if they are still like that but we hustled and had mobile Internet backup devices we could deploy if Verizon or some other broadband internet providers had a line down. ?ÿOur IT staff put together all sorts of crazy contraptions. They were awesome. This was all before mifi devices were a thing. ?ÿSo airlink raven modems and other stuff all put together. ?ÿ
porcelain toilet (unoccupied) that was sheared at the floor and blown through the ceiling
We had an employee like that one time. Fired him.
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Our antenna is on a tall building that likely survived lightning strikes before - may be the difference between positive and negative strikes as OleManRivew mentioned..?ÿ We installed polyphaser suppressors when we installed the cable some 22 years ago.?ÿ The equipment and electrical equipment was grounded in accordance with NEC and IBC.?ÿ I'm still mopping up the damage and testing equipment.?ÿ Just fyi, the only physical evidence I found (so far) was a burn where the RJ45 connects to the sensor - go figure.