Thunderstorms and electrical surges

D

davej

Getting the hang of it
Apr 25, 2014
279
69
Had a thunderstorm last week which apparently blew out a 8-port Netgear switch and damaged a 4-port Intel NIC card. I'm not sure what actually happened but I do have a 100ft CAT6 cable which runs from the basement to the 2nd floor and another 100ft CAT6 cable which runs from the basement to the garage attic. Maybe a surge was induced in one or both of these long cables?

Does anyone have experience with these $13-$50 surge protectors?
Amazon.com: cat6 surge protector
 
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I've used this brand before:

Ditek surge protection.
DITEK Surge Protection - Home

I've only heard great things about them. I recently used a 4 channel PoE surge suppressor. I like them because they have modules that are replaceable, meaning change only the ones you need to.

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davej said:
Had a thunderstorm last week which apparently blew out a 8-port Netgear switch and damaged a 4-port Intel NIC card. I'm not sure what actually happened but I do have a 100ft CAT6 cable which runs from the basement to the 2nd floor and another 100ft CAT6 cable which runs from the basement to the garage attic. Maybe a surge was induced in one or both of these long cables?

Does anyone have experience with these $13-$50 surge protectors?
Amazon.com: cat6 surge protector
Click to expand...

Yep, very possible.
 
As an Amazon Associate IPCamTalk earns from qualifying purchases.
I'll admit this could look like boneheaded thinking on my part. I've got 14 cameras hooked into a switch that I paid about 70 bucks for. Losing the switch would cost a lot less than 14 surge protectors and looks like the more reasonable path to me. Now if a lightning hit passes through the switch and takes out the NVR, it was a bad choice. If it takes out one or more cameras that would have been saved with the surge protectors, it was a bad choice. I think both of those scenarios are unlikely, but certainly possible.
 
L-Com seems to have a really crappy website.

Edit-- Because I can't get it to load a page without several timeouts.
 
Last edited:
davej said:
L-Com seems to have a really crappy website.
Click to expand...
Not sure why you'd say that. IMO, it has more technical info, white papers, FAQs and pertinent info that any other site for various lines of surge protection I have ever seen.
I prefer a great product that does terrific job from a company with a "crappy" web site over a not-so-good product from a company with a fantastic, good looking site (or whatever aspect you would consider not "crappy").

I have used several of their outdoor CAT-5e/6 products that absorbed nearby lighting strikes, sacrificed themselves and protected an Engenius access point on one end and a Linksys router's LAN port on the other.
 
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Great info, we’re in the lightning capital of the US and building a new house. Just got a bid today to prewire the house and I need to add these in. Thanks !
 
Perfect, no brainer and going to add this in. God knows the value of our electronics in the house and replacing them would cost 10’s of thousands of $.
 
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Don't forget good homeowner's or renters insurance and/or equipment protection policies.....lighting pretty much does what it wants to when it wants to and even the best surge protection and battery-backup schemes can be rendered null and void, especially from a direct hit.

AL is just north of FL and I've lost my share over the last 6 years due to lightning.
 
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TonyR said:
Don't forget good homeowner's or renters insurance and/or equipment protection policies.....lighting pretty much does what it wants to when it wants to and even the best surge protection and battery-backup schemes can be rendered null and void, especially from a direct hit.

AL is just north of FL and I've lost my share over the last 6 years due to lightning.
Click to expand...

Curious, do you have a whole house surge protector installed at the panel or meter?
 
looney2ns said:
Curious, do you have a whole house surge protector installed at the panel or meter?
Click to expand...
Yes, I do.
Matter of fact, I plan to call the electric co-op soon to ask about replacing it with, perhaps, a "better" one. After 13 years, it must have degraded somewhat by now.
I say that beacuse my experience in the past with MOV-based devices has been they more they were pressed into service, the more they degraded, their threshold (of shorting line-to-ground) would decrease, causing them to blow circuit breakers or fuses with lessening amounts of over-voltage. Maybe newer devices act differently, I don't know. But after all the hits we've had, they have to not work as well as when new because it seems we get more harmful spikes getting through to household devices.
 
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