Lightning strike HIT!
I would like some feedback on the following questions
1) How many Motorola Power supply have you replaced because lightning hits?
2) How many SM have you changed because of Lightning hits?
3) Has your installation been hit by lightning and nothing has gone bad?
4) If the SM/AP was hit by lightning, was the computer/router/switch gone bad?
5) How many SM/AP using CMM have you replace?
6) Has the CMM gone bad?
The answer will help me understand some questions about lightning protection.
Please help
- 1
2) 1
3) Not to my knowledge
4) Our equipment is on a backhaul unit - so no. However, one of our offices next to our towerhouse was hit the same day as our equipment and we lost all our SOHO routers/switches.
5) 1 SM, 4 AP’s, 1 CMM
6) Yep it got smoked. The backhaul was hit and the lightning ran down the cable into the IDU then into the CMM and someway or another 4 of our 6 AP’s were friends in the process. The cable where the IDU plugged into the CMM was black.
- about 50, out of 1200 subs.
2) 25 SM’s, none had surge suppressors.
3) Well never have seen that yet… wouldn’t hear about it if it did happen.
4) Had a switch, AP and backhaul go after a direct tower strike. Had a clients sonicwall go after his tower got hit SM was still functioning properly. Have had numerous NIC’s go after lightning storms, too many to mention, due to indirect strikes and static discharges. Non where grounded with surges suppressors.
5) None.
6) Had the unmanaged switch on a CMM go, as well as 1 that got literaly fried due to enviroment issues, someone had installed it in the hottest part of the building and it got too hot for it. Haven’t seen one get damaged by lightning, yet…
1
2
several direct hits to the tower with Canopy resets only
we have lost one bh, one ap, one cmm distribution board and one gps receiver to lightning (all at different times)
can’t say if the ap/sm/bh was hit directly, but we have lost a cisco switch (to a most probable surge thru the ethernet, lost several ports only) during a storm, without loosing any canopy equipment
we have not had a complete cmm die due to lightning or surge
our equipment is on the top of a 500’ stick with the cmm mounted ~ the 250’ level
1 - 0 (Funny thing, every SM that got fried, no lost power supplies)
2 - 7 (none had 300 SS grounding - two from the same hit, all due to indirect/static whatnots. Every SM had a variation of pins 1,2,3,6 fried. 1,3 2, 6 1,3 go figure)
3 - Hahahah no. Good stories there…
4 - Had some genius install a cluster on a 40 ft metal pole on top of a building with a cluster on it before I got here. No grounding, highest point in the area except the water tower next to it. Blew up the cluster…still have pics around here somewhere. Pieces of blackened plastic canopy goodness everywhere below the pole. Fried the 6 APs on the cluster, 45Mbps BH, CMM in the building, unmanaged switch, every computer (not just the NIC) and phone in the building. I think the building had faulty wiring to start, but a good portion of it was replaced afterwards. Great stuff…shut down operations for 3 days. A year later we finally got permission to install it on the water tower. Nice and grounded now, but we’ll see.
5 - 6 APs - not the biggest operation here, but fun!
6 - Not that I’ve seen. One got really hot from A/C going out in the ITN, but we got to it in time.
How do you guys ground your AP installs, just the CMM box or do you put the ethernet surge protectors that come for the SMs?
Yup, we use the transtector equipment on the clusters as well. We don’t have any 300SS boxes left for our SMs though, as getting supplies over here is…well…lets just say, we order something, and it shows up a year later…
Nicolaus how is the power grid over there now days is it pretty stable? do you have backups on all your equipment? Also is there electric different like the voltages and are the plugs all different like in some parts of europe? i am just curious
I will agree with Jerry, The people at Transtector know what they are doing.
They also have free information on how to ground your site.
Shortly, I will post my experience, But it pays to do it.
We use generators still where we are. We use anything from SmartPro and APC 650s and 1000s to some of the larger APC Symmetra Power Arrays in our comms rooms (still not enough though). Unfortunately most of our remote sites don’t have battery back ups…it leads to all sorts of issues with unclean power. Surprisingly, Cisco switches and Canopy modules handle this better than any of us thought. Not so much with surecom, 3com, linksys, or Dlink unmanaged switches. I think they run the generators between 220 -240. We use about every plug standard there is as long as the power supply runs 220. Thankfully Canopy has the 100 - 240 power supplies where you can switch out plug standards. As far as Iraq’s power infrastructure…I’m the wrong person to ask.