Re: Lightning protection -- MIDRANGE-L

Yes I can speak from experience that there is no 100% protection from 
lightning.  At a previous employer, we took a lightning strike in the 
parking lot, which was just on the other side of the data center wall.

There was no power fluctuation at all, but the lightning created a strong 
electromagnetic wave.  The AS/400 immediately went into an IPL (although 
the log showed absolutely no power interruption) and all the monitors on 
that side of the office were "Gaussed" - that is they looked like they had 
a strong magnet stuck by them - all purple and distorted.   Once the 400 
came up and rebuilt access paths, it was fine.  The monitors eventually 
"degaussed" themselves (they didn't have a button for that, as some do).

End result was we were down for about 6 hours with no way to really 
prevent it (save possible relocating the data center away from an outside 
wall - which is a good idea if you are planning one!).


Jeff Carey
Technical Specialist
AS/400 Technology
Transaction Processing Systems
DF5-1W 
847-948-2191




Chuck Lewis <clewis@iquest.net>
Sent by: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
07/17/00 06:55 AM
Please respond to MIDRANGE-L

 
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        Subject:        Re: Lightning protection


Just an aside to all of this... 

and yes, we have had this problem this year too at remote sites. 
EVERYTHING would be fine except for the Adtran DSU/CSU... We got line 
conditioners for the data circuits... 

you need to do ALL you can but there is NO fool proof way that I've ever 
heard of to GUARANTEE protection from a lightening strike other than 
unplugging stuff (or conditioning the power through a LARGE UPS so nothing 
runs off of external power. Still have a problem with the data circuits). 
When we were researching UPS's many years ago, we came across technical 
data from the power folks that a SINGLE bolt of lightening can generate 
ONE MILLION VOLTS of electricity in SECONDS !! 

Mother Nature - ALWAYS impressive :-) 

Chuck 

Jim Franz wrote: After a severe lightning storm Thu nite, a customer's shop is 
still down. 
The AS/400 runs fine. The 400 & most network equip on large UPS all 
survived. (Their network tech put some RAS servers outside computer room & 
they died-idiot). All the hubs in office damaged.  My question is the 
CISCO router. Was on UPS & powers up ok, but the tech described the 
CSU/DSU port as "fried". Is there such a thing as T1 cable surge 
suppression? I asked router tech & he has no clue. I asked telco tech & he 
had no clue.Jim Franz


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