Cat5 Lightning protection ?

[Total]

I had a lightning hit that hit a tree , then a poe camera , came through the cable into a switch , out to another camera , then through 300 ft or cat 5 up to my house , took out another 3 cameras , 24 port switch , router , 48 " led tv , video card , 2 telephones . Wow , but have you ever used any of these http://www.network-equipment.com/ethernet-surge-protector-gigabit-lan-lighting-thunder-rj45-cat5-cat5e-cat6-1kmbs , ideas and thanks .

And some pictures of the tree ..


Appreciated ..

 

[fenderman]

Consider this http://www.amazon.com/Ethernet-Protector--Outdoor--Gigabit-1000Mbs/dp/B008060BU0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1435798000&sr=8-3&keywords=poe+surge&pebp=1435797949949&perid=0RFNHE4RCDMHHMX4QVRC
or for multiple ports http://www.l-com.com/surge-protector-cat6-data-line-lightning-surge-protectors

 

[wharris69]

Yes I have, we have two cams mounted on steel poles in our parking lot...everytime lighting came thru, we would lose both cams and the POE they were attached to. Put these on and surge protector on POE, no more problems. They are worth their weight in gold... Make sure you have a good ground though.

 

[Zorac]

Yes I have, we have two cams mounted on steel poles in our parking lot...everytime lighting came thru, we would lose both cams and the POE they were attached to. Put these on and surge protector on POE, no more problems. They are worth their weight in gold... Make sure you have a good ground though.

what product were you using?

 

[Total]

I already 6 of the ones you suggested , should be here Friday .

 

[Total]

One more question - I have a 45 ft power pole with a antenna on a pipe , it is grounded with a #3 bare copper directly to a ground rod . If I put a poe camera on that power pole would it be better to have the surge right below the camera on the pole , or the surge inside the building ? thanks

 

[nayr]

the best place for those is on the outside of the building right before it goes in, using the house grounding rod if possible.. if not hammer one in for the ingress point.

make sure the camera housing is grounded to the pole, the PoE breaker will be further away and have more resistance so the majority of the damage should be taken by your antenna and pole.

most rack mount equipment also has a chassis ground, if your PoE switch has one then wire it up.. traditionally you ground all this equipment into a chassis, then give it good power and lightning protection on EVERY external connection.. this will help reduce damage.. (emphasis added)

Still be prepared for the worst because lightning is a mother fucker as you seem to be aware of now..

Find a good HAM operator and the'll show you how to ground your mast to take a hit.. You can add 4 more grounding rods in a cross shape 2x the length out from the first one for extra sinking capacity.. they do make equipment on top of mountains that get struck constantly without skipping a beat, it is possible if your willing to spend a small fortune on copper to burry.

 

[MartyO]

the best place for those is on the outside of the building right before it goes in, using the house grounding rod if possible.. if not hammer one in for the ingress point.

make sure the camera housing is grounded to the pole, the PoE breaker will be further away and have more resistance so the majority of the damage should be taken by your antenna and pole.

most rack mount equipment also has a chassis ground, if your PoE switch has one then wire it up.. traditionally you ground all this equipment into a chassis, then give it good power and lightning protection on EVERY external connection.. this will help reduce damage.. (emphasis added)

Still be prepared for the worst because lightning is a mother fucker as you seem to be aware of now..

Find a good HAM operator and the'll show you how to ground your mast to take a hit.. You can add 4 more grounding rods in a cross shape 2x the length out from the first one for extra sinking capacity.. they do make equipment on top of mountains that get struck constantly without skipping a beat, it is possible if your willing to spend a small fortune on copper to burry.

You nailed it.

 

[Total]

Thanks for the input - Right now I have 4 ground rods connected together with bare copper , the house/yard has been hit 3 times and up till now no damage . It is the highest point for miles ... Will protect all the cat 5's and keep my fingers crossed ...

 

[CrazyFin]

Hi guys

I see that "Total" has already good excellent suggestions. Just wanted to share my installation up here in middle of Sweden.

Since I have HAM radio and scanner antennas on my roof I needed to do a good lightning protection. Taking a direct hit like you Total is always difficult and expensive to protect against.

I have built a special box outside the wall with a feeder channel going into my lab. ALL my antenna and surveillance camera feed lines go through this box via different kind of surge protectors.
Currently I am using the Safe Surge PRO from Dbii Networks. http://www.dbii.com/safesurgepro.html
It works fine with my AXIS P3346-VE cameras but my AXIS P3364-VE camera does not start when I connect it via this protector. I think it has some problems with the PoE-classification of the Safe Surge PRO protectors that does not work with PoE+, only PoE.

I have ordered this one http://www.ispsupplies.com/categories/Ethernet-Surge-Protection/ESWA-3200C6x.html and I received it today so I´ll connect it to my AXIS P3364-VE and see if the camera will work through this surge protector.

Here are som pics of my installation:

The box outside the wall:

This is what it looks like on the inside of the box:

The surge protectors on the right side with the white cables is for my satelite dish connected to my 8 tuner TV-server.
The surge protectors on the bottom left side are for my HAM radio and scanner antennas and then finally you see 4 the Safe Surge PRO protectors from Dbii Networks.
I am planning to have 6 cameras in total so there are 2 mounted on the right side as well (to the right of the SAT surge protectors.

Close up picture of the IP camera surge protectors:

And all the ground wires from the surge protectors and other grounds as well as the ground wires from my 4 copper 3 meter deep ground rods in the ground around the house are coming to this singe point of ground in the main box where the electricity comes in to my house. You see also the main electricity surge protectors from Obo Bettermann on the top right (the orange ones):

Everything seems to work fine and I hope that I am now well protected for surges arising from nearby lightning strikes. A direct hit to for example my roof antenna will probably be quite devastating anyway and to protect against direct hits is much more difficult and expensive.

For anyone wanting to read more about solutions I highly recommend readin the excellent documents from Dehn & Söhne that can be found at http://www.dehn.co.uk/en-gb/lightning-protection-guide especially the part http://www.dehn.co.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/dehn/pdf/blitzplaner/bpl2015/chapters/lpg_chapter_09-07.pdf that describes surge protection for CCTV/IP cameras.
A LOT of good reading...

OBO Bettermann has also a very good document (loooots of pages...) at http://catalog.obo-bettermann.com/cps/rde/xbcr/SID-2CC39640-C4FFA00D/obo-bettermann/download/au-en/Katalog-TBS_en.pdf

 

[CrazyFin]

Ok so I installed the ESWA-3200C6x surge protector yesterday and it worked perfectly fine with my AXIS P3364-VE camera.


You can see the new protector been mounted in the upper right of my feed through box:

 

[Total]

All protected , thanks for all the help and pictures . Protection is always good ....

 

[Zorac]

because of this tread, i just ordered this:

http://www.l-com.com/surge-protector-19-rack-mount-12-port-rj45-10-100-1000-base-t-gas-tube-cat6-lightning-protector

going to put all my exterior cameras and my anything else connected to extenal sources on the network (ie voip box connected to the phone line and the network) to it. i have heard good things about the l-com stuff before and the guys were great to deal with. the surge protetor arrived here and looks like the business, but waiting on some cabling to install it.