Lightning Strikes My Axe-FX II XL+

mr_fender said:
Not just wired phones and electrical outlets, but also coax from cable TV/satellite/internet, ethernet cable to PC's and smart TV's, etc., and plumbing which also is grounded and full of liquid conductor. There's quite a few paths for lightning to take and pay you an up close and personal visit. It's dangerous stuff. If you are close enough to a storm to hear thunder, you are close enough to get struck. Stay safe.
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Let's not overdo it. You are about a hundred times more likely to die in a car accident than to be hit by lightning.


But just to add some weird trivia; men are 5 times more likely to be hit by lightning than women:
Lightning strikes: Men more likely to be struck than woman, statistics say - tribunedigital-chicagotribune
 
Zwiebelchen said:
Let's not overdo it. You are about a hundred times more likely to die in a car accident than to be hit by lightning.
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Agreed, BUT, to be fair, I would guess, that your chances AT THAT MOMENT of getting hit by a car inside your house during a lightning storm are much lower than you having a lightning event of some variety; including a traumatic AxeFx threatening one... Your circumstantial probability for some phenomena dramatically go up or down under certain conditions. Probability is one of those things that most people think they have a common sense notion of but is actually extremely hard to get a mental handle on at the intuitive level.

This is why, my AFX gets unplugged if I am near it and it is plugged in when a lightning storm shows up and I don't take a shower during and I don't start doing some wiring on the home theater. In that case the probabilty gets very close to zero. ;) Could still be a fire or something, I s'pose.

But just to add some weird trivia; men are 5 times more likely to be hit by lightning than women:
Lightning strikes: Men more likely to be struck than woman, statistics say - tribunedigital-chicagotribune
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Yep, that's a good example. Note that one (good IMHO) theory presented for this statistical anomaly in the article is that men are statistically less cautious wrt their behavior during storms which gives them a much higher probability for an event.

Or maybe their impedance is just lower.
 
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For the most part lightning go's where it wants to, ground or no ground. That is not saying that grounding stuff doesn't help... It does, to a point (as far as taking the current path away from you and sending it to earth ground). But back to the other point I'm trying to make, if you have an electrical item (like the Axe FX) that gets lightning hit hard or otherwise, be sure and send it in even if there no signs of damage right then. Why? Because I have had to replace electronics in the field, in systems near 6 months after they were around a lightning hit. I guess It just weakens the performance of the parts and they eventually fail after a while. But, they usually do fail at some point within a few months after being hit by lighting (in my experience) after showing little sign of damage at first. FYI and YMMV...
 
Had a lightning strike hit a tree directly across the street from me yesterday. It fried our home computer (luckily I use our laptop 99.9% of the time), Wi-Fi modem, surround sound system in my wife & I's bedroom, and landline phone (also in the bedroom). Luckily, I wasn't playing guitar at the time and my Axe-Fx is plugged into a power strip with a surge protector, so it was spared. :)
 
Verdict In ... main board damaged beyond point of reasonable repair. New main board w/labor & shipping $1343.44. Better that $2500 :). Have to say the support at Fractal is pretty great. Always stinks having to ship a unit off, but they do a great job getting it through the process and communicating with you along the way. I paid the invoice and received shipping information within an hour. Look forward to getting back to normal by end of week!
 
davidhagar said:
Well, just goes to show how hugely over priced the unit was to begin with, 1343.44 that shows Cliff is probably making at least $1,000 profit on each unit he sells, ridiculous greed, keep on raking in that dough Cliff, the Helix is coming
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"Davidhagar" is a romeo rose multi.
 
davidhagar said:
Well, just goes to show how hugely over priced the unit was to begin with, 1343.44 that shows Cliff is probably making at least $1,000 profit on each unit he sells, ridiculous greed, keep on raking in that dough Cliff, the Helix is coming
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LOL. Right, because the mainboard of a unit is 100% of the cost of materials for a device and additional components, enclosures, assembly, software, support, and R&D are free! Hurray!
 
A huge portion of the cost of the unit, aside from manufacturing and overheads, will be the firmware. That's where the money goes.

These guys don't think the bill of materials for their Pod, Smartphone, Tablet, Guitar, or whatever is the same as the street price? Not by a long shot.
 
zerolight said:
A huge portion of the cost of the unit, aside from manufacturing and overheads, will be the firmware. That's where the money goes.

These guys don't think the bill of materials for their Pod, Smartphone, Tablet, Guitar, or whatever is the same as the street price? Not by a long shot.
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Being in the high tech industry it is always incredibly frustrating, but, yes, actually it is constantly misrepresented like that in the media and people really do think that. You see click bait headlines all the time: your $700 smartphone is really just $75 worth of components (even if half of those are not off the shelf parts that were custom designed by a team of engineers and you have no idea of what they "cost")! It's maddening.
 
tbrooks1060 said:
Verdict In ... main board damaged beyond point of reasonable repair. New main board w/labor & shipping $1343.44. Better that $2500 :). Have to say the support at Fractal is pretty great. Always stinks having to ship a unit off, but they do a great job getting it through the process and communicating with you along the way. I paid the invoice and received shipping information within an hour. Look forward to getting back to normal by end of week!
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It should be covered by your home insurance if you have one.
 
tbrooks1060 said:
Verdict In ... main board damaged beyond point of reasonable repair. New main board w/labor & shipping $1343.44. Better that $2500 :). Have to say the support at Fractal is pretty great. Always stinks having to ship a unit off, but they do a great job getting it through the process and communicating with you along the way. I paid the invoice and received shipping information within an hour. Look forward to getting back to normal by end of week!
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I gotta say this is very surprising ... in a good way. See, you basicly only pay half for an almost complete replacement Axe. I was absolutely expecting that you have to buy a whole new unit.
Interesting... this definitely adds some long-term value to the Axe, if you ask me.
 
I once had a near miss take out the voice side of my ISDN terminal adapter. The phones stopped working but the data side worked fine. Best guess is that the lightning induced a current in my phone wiring that fried the voice section of the TA.
 
TieDyedDevil said:
This pretty much sums up my take on "power conditioners". Imagining that a few little components will hold back a lightning-induced surge is pure fantasy. BTW, most power supplies already have the same kind of surge protection built in; it's OK for damping down the bit of transient overvoltage that you might see from a large motor starting up on the same circuit, but it's gonna fry when hit with a serious surge.

If you really want some kind of effective lightning protection, have an electrician install a suppressor in your home's breaker panel. Something like this:

Square D by Schneider Electric HEPD80 Home Electronics Protective Device - Circuit Breakers - Amazon.com

It'll cost you a couple hundred bucks installed (how much for those Furmans and other "protectors"?).
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This shows how little you know of power conditioners/surge suppressors... I design products 1/4 of the size of a standard surge suppressor that can save the equipment that is attached...
 
tbrooks1060 said:
Fractal has had the unit for over a week now, so not thinking it will be good news. Will update for those interested. Thanks.
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The same thing happened to my Axe FX a year and a half ago, I live in NW Florida so I should have know better but lernt a tough lesson the hard way. :cry

It was a bad strike and took out my computer, large flat screen TV, jacked up my cable Internet connection where it comes into the house, and a few other devices were lost. I had surge protectors around the house and had turned everything off during the storm before the lightening strike. Not enough. My Axe FX issue was that the usb cable was still plugged in from the computer to the Axe FX, I also have things plugged into a Furman M-8Lx so maybe that helped but the current traveled right through the usb cable. So everything else worked on the Axe FX just fine but when I tried to connect it to Axe Edit or anything else it was a no go. Support tried to help me troubleshoot but when I mentioned the lightening strike they had me send it in and it turned out the usb input device on the Axe Fx had to be replaced and it was as good as new. My Fractal warranty had just run out but my cost with shipping was only like $128.00 so I was quite happy and Fractal support was awesome. It was about a 2 1/2 or 3 week wait as I remember.

I posted a thread about this when it happened but word to the wise...do not leave the usb cable connected to your computer during a storm, (or ever) and unplug everything in the house. I did invest in some UPS power supply/back up's since then but don't rely on those. As far as home owners ins. my deductible was almost exactly the cost of everything I lost so it did not help me, but if you pay a higher premium hopefully you have a lower deductible and can get an Axe FX II XL+. :eagerness:

Good luck with the repair, keep us informed!
 
I live on 20 acres, which gives me plenty of yard work to do. I'm currently busy spreading about 30 yards of
mulch. Sooooo, today, when the storms came, I put away my wheel barrow and shovels and did what? Ran, not walked,
upstairs turned on the computer, axe, speakers, etc., and started wailing away, like I do all the time when it's too
inclement to work outside. Not any more! Thanks for the info, guys. I should have known better, but sometimes you
just can't fix stupid.
 
Hi Folks .... just wanted to clarify a couple of things. First ... got my unit back today and it works great so thankful for that. Also, I didn't have an issue with the $1300 plus repair cost so if I led anyone on the forum or Fractal to believe that, then my apologies. I received a new main board, so it gave me peace of mind vs. component repair and risk of failure in the future. I totally agree that cost of ownership extends way past hardware and software. This is where Fractal exceeds in my opinion, other than quality and authenticity. My homeowners insurance did cover a portion of the cost so it's not a complete out of pocket expense. At end of day, it was an act of God and nothing really would have prevented given the same circumstances again. Stuff just happens! :) The folks at Fractal are great!

BTW ... I just can't agree on the Line 6 comment. I've owned a lot of Line 6 gear and just not a fan. Have read about the Helix, but just can't imagine it measuring up to the Axe. I'm not a gear basher, but just not a Line 6 fan.
 
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