https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/01/world/gallery/guadalajara-hail-storm/index.html

Caught that on the morning news, really pretty wild.

Ron

 

We are gearing up for the monsoons.
Had a single lightning strike yesterday that took out my DVR and made a second TV forget it had video.
Hard to figure. All the utilities are underground.

 

We are gearing up for the monsoons.
Had a single lightning strike yesterday that took out my DVR and made a second TV forget it had video.
Hard to figure. All the utilities are underground.

Did the strike cause a power surge, or was it (I declare myself a neophyte naivé) an EMP?

 

We get very rare lightening damage here now since the transmission lines have gone mostly DC, compared to the 3ph AC, any strike on the HV transmission ended up at the sub stations, and subsequently residential areas.
Its blocked now before sub stn level.
Max..

 

Did the strike cause a power surge, or was it (I declare myself a neophyte naivé) an EMP?

I'm not sure, but it also blew a ceiling fan (electronics I suppose) and we have a whole house protector, so I'm guessing more like an EMP.

 

I had some come in the house last summer. It struck the power pole, came in on the tv cable and shorted the section of coax from indoor splitter to cable tv box.

With an extremely loud snap. The protection circuitry in that cable box must be bodacious. After replacing the coax, the box functions fine.

They did replace the equipment on pole.

 

When I built this house I had the electrician install a surge arrestor in the panel in addition to all my surge arrested power strips and UPS. It looks like a double thick hockey puck with 3 wires. L1, L2, N/GND. Been here almost 40 years without any problems. One day we had a strike in a huge/tall old pine tree about 30' from the house when I was home. Startled me so bad I lifted up outta my chair and about the time my rump came back down, it hit again. Double strike and blew the bark off that old tree and killed it. Nary a problem with anything in the house and these days that's a lot of digital equipment. I do have a metal roof and foil coated insulated foam sheathing under the siding so it's like living in a faraday cage which tics off the wife because she has to go to a window or outside to use her cell phone.

 

it's like living in a faraday cage which tics off the wife because she has to go to a window or outside to use her cell phone.

It's a very similar situation in my place. I was wondering, is there some way of routing some sort of antenna that would pick cell signals from the outside of a house, to its inside?

 

They make them but I don't know anyone who ever used one. Where I live is in a semi-rural area and we already switched carriers long ago because we had no/very poor service at home. I did put up an external antenna for my GPS on the boat above the aluminum T-Top frame which helped immensely. I did hear some of the shrimp trawlers had installed them. They were always very secretive on VHF about how they were doing catchwise where they were trawling so as not to have all the other boats gang in on them when they hit a hot spot and wanted their family boats to get in on it. They quickly took up cell phones as soon as they were available much to their wives delight and their dismay.

https://cellphonesignalbooster.us/4...ohm/?msclkid=fb80eea0793717284e9bb3bac060a12d

 

Did the strike cause a power surge, or was it (I declare myself a neophyte naivé) an EMP?

It's like a virus!
When the cable guy came today I realized the doorbell is also out.
I'm beginning to wonder if I'm properly grounded. It's a new house so this was it's first experience with lightning.

 

Lightning certainly induces EMP. Coming home one day in a heavy raining thunderstorm when I got to the house I put my briefcase over my head to keep the rain off my glasses and lightning hit quite far away and the aluminum frame of the briefcase picked up the EMP and zapped the crap out of my hand on its plastic handle. Much stronger than what you get from static buildup. Which is why surge protected power strips at the device are useful. Not much you can do for doorbell wiring other than maybe grounding the transformer frame and I don't think that would help. I did ground the metal on my roof. I would advise anyone in a lightning prone area to put a surge arrestor on their panel. They are cheap compared to lightning damage.

 

since the transmission lines have gone mostly DC

Where is this?

 

It's like a virus!
When the cable guy came today I realized the doorbell is also out.
I'm beginning to wonder if I'm properly grounded. It's a new house so this was it's first experience with lightning.

"Lightning is a giant spark of electricity in the atmosphere between clouds, the air, or the ground. In the early stages of development, air acts as an insulator between the positive and negative charges in the cloud and between the cloud and the ground".

We can read definitions of lightning but it is just one of those natural phenomenon that fails to follow the rules we seem to think it should. The house beside my sister's house in West Virginia (about 50 feet away) took a direct hit. My sister described it as a loud crack with a blinding flash. This was before broadband and the only victim in her house was the dial up modem in her computer. Her phones worked just fine so why was that?

Knew a fellow here in Ohio, nice home nestled in and surrounded by tall pines. Real tall pines well towering over his house. Thunderstorm rolls through and he is in his living room with his kids. His chimney, well below the tree top level took a direct hit. His fireplace and brick chimney literally exploded from super heated instant steam. Bricks flew everywhere missing him and his kids. Why didn't the lightning hit any of the taller trees?

Coolest thing I ever saw was when dating my wife. We were in the local park system and a thunder storm moved through. A tall tree maybe 100 feet away took a direct hit and suddenly it sounded like a long string of firecrackers going off. Super heated steam converted the entire tree into toothpicks in a matter of seconds. I mean anything more than 3 feet above the deck was obliterated and toothpicks, totally amazing. We still talk about that 30 years later.

Sometimes, electricity, with a focus on lightning simply does not quite behave the way we figure it should.

Ron

 

Where is this?

Canada. That's where DC transmission is getting popular.

Ron

 

Where is this?

Manitoba Hydro, 15 Hydro electric stations and 5,700MegaWatts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
Max.

 

A

Manitoba Hydro, 15 Hydro electric stations and 5,700MegaWatts

And here I thought the Edison Westinghouse debate had been resolved years ago. I wouldn't mind reading about MH using DC. The web sites I found on them were mostly advertising and how to contact the billing office. Is that 5.7MW each or total? We made 3.5MW in our 600PSI steam turbine I thought or I could be off a decimal place?

 

Not 5.7 MW. It's 5.7K MW.

 

My Neighbor across the street is semi-retired, but travels all over N.A. overseeing conversions!
They initially used the older Thyratron mercury rectifiers, now SCR's are used for the re-conversion back to AC.
Max.

 

They initially used the older Thyratron mercury rectifiers, now SCR's are used for the re-conversion back to AC.

That's actually pretty cool and interesting stuff. I well remember thyratrons from my early years and want to remember a purple glow when they fired. Big motor speed control and also EDM (Electron Discharge Machine).

I guess I really don't quite get why DC? I also saw the Edison Vs. Tesla thing as having been solved years ago. My grandparents house in Brooklyn NY was among the first to have electricity and it was DC. When it was switched to AC obviously light bulbs didn't care but the DC compressor motors in refrigerators did. Consolidated Edison gave everyone huge rectifiers for the DC motors. Pretty neat old stuff for the era.

Ron

 

I guess I really don't quite get why DC?

High-voltage Direct Current. Lower losses, higher efficiency.