Lightning Strike - Off Topic

There is so much energy in a lighting bolt, that it creates it's own
ionization path to ground. Reason that a banker sitting inside the bank in
a chair, and the lighting hit the drive through teller machine, arced to the
wall and came out the 115V ac outlet, jumping to the banker and screwing him
up for life. You put a couple of hundred thousand volts and even minimal
amperage and you have lots of energy. 100,000 volts and 0.5 amps of current
and you have 50,000 Watts of energy. As to needing a ground, there are
reports of "ball Lighting" coming through the nose of an airliner and
rolling down the aisle. Same ball lighting will roll along electric fences.
Growing up in California, we did not see much lighting, but I remember the
first TV antenna I saw that had been hit by lighting. Top of a motel, and
there was a 3'x3' hole blown in the roof. Big energy.
Bill

"w_tom" wrote in message
...
First, most lightning strikes never leave an indication.
Lightning is a high power but rarely a typically high energy
event. Well over 90% of trees struck during a US Forestry
study showed any indication of that direct lightning strike.

Second, to be damaged, the appliance must have both an
incoming and outgoing electrical path. It is electricity.
Some forget this. For example, they think lightning comes in
on phone line, damages a modem, then stops. Electricity does
not work that way. To have damage, first lightning passes
through everything in a path. Only later is something, still
in that path, damaged. To appreciate why some things are
damaged and others are not, one must first learn the complete
electrical path.

It is an electrical path from cloud to earth, then through
earth to charges maybe located miles distant. An appliance is
damaged when it becomes path of an electrical circuit from
cloud to distant earthborne charges.

Third, a figure from the NIST demonstrates how lightning can
damage electronics:
http://www.epri-peac.com/tutorials/sol01tut.html

In this case, the problem is created by utility wires
entering from the different directions. Same problem can be
created when utility wires are not earthed to a common earth
ground. IOW take those incoming AC electric and phone lines
in that figure. Separate the phone line ground from AC
electric ground. Now lightning strikes a nearby tree (or cell
phone tower) on right side. Electricity travels right to left
in that figure. It rises up on phone line ground, passes
destructively through the fax machine, then drops back to
earth on AC electric ground. This is but another reason why
buildings must have a single point ground.

Fourth, sometimes the lightning strike you saw was also
forking to strike other nearby wires. These wires even out in
the street are like antenna connections directly into every
(non-radio) appliance. This is but another possible incoming
path. What would be the outgoing path to earth ground?
Lightning damages appliances because that appliance is in a
good electrical path to earth.

We never stop that electricity. We earth it before that
destructive transient can find a path inside the building. A
concept that Ben Franklin demonstrates in 1752. Give
lightning a better path to earth and it will not take a
destructive path through a church steeple (or your cable box).

Nothing facetious in your damage. Some things were damaged
because lightning found a complete electrical path through
that appliance. Fields from the nearby strike did not cause
those problems.

Unfortunately, you now know what appliances were connected
to improperly earthed incoming utility wires. How are they
earthed? Earthing is how future damage can be eliminated.
Effective protection costs far less that plug-in surge
protectors.

Joshuall wrote:
Shane,
thanks. . . thought i was going nuts. !

--
God Bless America

Josh The Bad Bear