Would a nearby lightning strike possibly fry my Axe-Fx 3’s USB socket?

I have had lightning strike a large oak in my yard, twice. Each time all the TVs in my house had fried HDMI ports. I believe the surge traveled through the cable to cable box then through HDMI cable to TV. The TVs have more than one port, so I was able to switch, then it happened again, now I'm down to one working HDMI port. I now disconnect cable during a storm.
 
Twenty years ago, or so, we lost an entire computer lab (30 P.C.'s) where I teach. It was one of our first labs connected to the Internet via a T1 (ie. phone line). The lightning struck the building close to where the T1 entered the building and travelled along the twisted pair to the router, then through the router, through all the hubs and fried all the Arcnet NIC's.
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
Hi. Neighbor's house got hit by lightning mere yards away from my office, where my AxeFX3 lives.

I went to turn it on this afternoon, and all seems ok, except AxeEdit says it is "Disconnected".

Tried loading AxeEdit on my travel computer (an old MacBook Air), and it reads "Disconnected" on that as well.

Tried switching out "printer" USB cables, no joy.

The neighbor's roof, where the lightning hit:
20191106_073839.jpg


I guess if there's nothing else to try, it's a call to my homeowner's insurance and cross my fingers the rat bastards actually cover it.
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Yes it would get the APC backup or the monster power conditioner you screw into the wall socket and ground it
hmu if u need more info
 
Does anyone know if a Furman AR 1800 Voltage Regulator would protect from an event like this? If the units are powered down but plugged in is there still risk? (please answer questions individually if you know, I’m really curious of the answer)
 
Bruce Sokolovic said:
Does anyone know if a Furman AR 1800 Voltage Regulator would protect from an event like this? If the units are powered down but plugged in is there still risk? (please answer questions individually if you know, I’m really curious of the answer)
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As a former commercial electrician and current electronic technician, I will say, there is nothing that can/will protect electronics from a direct lightning strike. Static and transient current are one thing but, a lightning strike carries enough amps/volts to light an entire city and it's released in just a few milliseconds. No consumer product, that I am aware of, can absorb that much of a load or react quickly enough to prevent damage from a direct hit.
 
It's absolutely possible. I used to work for one of the nationwide satellite TV companies. We used to have issues where a neighbors house would get hit by lightning and it would fry out the HDMI ports on the TV and the satellite set top box. All the rest of the inputs would work fine.

I have seen lightning do some absolutely crazy things.

Did a job once where a pine tree was hit by a direct strike in their back yard. The sap superheated, expanded and the tree blew up as if it were hit by a bomb. It blew out the picture window in their living room and there were bits of wood everywhere in there. No charring at all, but all the little chunks of wood from the tree had a glaze of sap on them like they'd been shellacked.
 
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Transmission through the USB cable can be sneaky as it leads back to your computer so it may pick up a charge from any other thing plugged into the computer. i.e. It's not just the peripheral you're in contact with, it's every peripheral they're sleeping with... :)

Or if it hits your mixer it could end up coming through your audio cables. I've seen it go through network cables. I think the only way to be safe from lightning is to disconnect everything. Surge protectors help a surge of a relatively small amount of current but with lightning all bets are off.
 
CodePoet said:
Transmission through the USB cable can be sneaky as it leads back to your computer so it may pick up a charge from any other thing plugged into the computer. i.e. It's not just the peripheral you're in contact with, it's every peripheral they're sleeping with... :)

Or if it hits your mixer it could end up coming through your audio cables. I've seen it go through network cables. I think the only way to be safe from lightning is to disconnect everything. Surge protectors help a surge of a relatively small amount of current but with lightning all bets are off.
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once something is out of the wall its safe then, right? I mean, short of lightning knocking down a wall and directly hitting my computer, of course. If it hits the house but nothing is plugged in I'm good?
 
Bruce Sokolovic said:
once something is out of the wall its safe then, right? I mean, short of lightning knocking down a wall and directly hitting my computer, of course. If it hits the house but nothing is plugged in I'm good?
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For the most part, yes. Given enough voltage though, electricity can jump across air, case in point, lightning. When I worked in a mine, during the summer when I was in college, I worked with the electrical crew and I got to witness an arc test of a high voltage insulator. I saw 80,000 volts arc across a distance of about 2-3 feet! It was as loud as hell too! The bolt was probably about 4-5" in diameter. It was something to see!

Homes should have their electrical system and metal pipes properly grounded. When I built my house back in 2001, the code called for 2, 10 foot lightning rods hammered into the ground, spaced 10 feet apart and the ground wire from the electrical panel connected to both lightning rods. Not only is the panel grounded, but any metal pipes are as well, like copper water pipes and more importantly, the steel natural gas line. Lightning and natural gas lines are not a good mix!

The other thing people need to be cautious about, during a lightning storm, is to not use the water or take a shower, if you have metal water lines, ie, copper lines. Most newer homes, use plastic PEX water lines, so it's not an issue. Also, if you have a landline, don't use the phone! There have been several cases where people have been electrocuted while using the phone during a storm.
 
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Toopy14 said:
For the most part, yes. Given enough voltage though, electricity can jump across air, case in point, lightning. When I worked in a mine, during the summer when I was in college, I worked with the electrical crew and I got to witness an arc test of a high voltage insulator. I saw 80,000 volts arc across a distance of about 2-3 feet! It was as loud as hell too! The bolt was probably about 4-5" in diameter. It was something to see!
Homes should have their electrical system and metal pipes properly grounded. When I built my house back in 2001, the code called for 2, 10 foot lightning rods hammered into the ground, spaced 10 feet apart and the ground wire from the electrical panel connected to both lightning rods. Not only is the panel grounded, but any metal pipes are as well, like copper water pipes and more importantly, the steel natural gas line. Lightning and natural gas lines are not a good mix!

The other thing people need to be cautious about, during a lightning storm, is to not use the water or take a shower, if you have metal water lines, ie, copper lines. Most newer homes, use plastic PEX water lines, so it's not an issue. Also, if you have a landline, don't use the phone! There have been several cases where people have been electrocuted while using the phone during a storm.
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Scary stuff. This house was built in 1900. There are pics of it with a dirt road and horses outside, I doubt much has been done to code but who knows. We are only here another 4 years so wish me luck. I'm going to start pulling the plug in bad weather. Too much money at stake.
 
Bruce Sokolovic said:
Scary stuff. This house was built in 1900. There are pics of it with a dirt road and horses outside, I doubt much has been done to code but who knows. We are only here another 4 years so wish me luck. I'm going to start pulling the plug in bad weather. Too much money at stake.
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Do you have breakers or fuses in the electrical panel?

If it's the latter, don't overload circuits in the house. If there haven't been any renovations done to the house, it most likely still has knob and tube wiring. Even it has been renovated, the people who renovated it may have cut corners and tied the Romex wiring into the knob and tube wiring...that's a big no, no! Knob and tube wiring was state-of-the art at the time, but it was never meant to handle the current draws of today's appliances and gadgets.
 
Toopy14 said:
Do you have breakers or fuses in the electrical panel?

If it's the latter, don't overload circuits in the house. If there haven't been any renovations done to the house, it most likely still has knob and tube wiring. Even it has been renovated, the people who renovated it may have cut corners and tied the Romex wiring into the knob and tube wiring...that's a big no, no! Knob and tube wiring was state-of-the art at the time, but it was never meant to handle the current draws of today's appliances and gadgets.
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This house has 2 panel boxes with breakers. No idea of the wiring but I know we had a home inspection problem with some wiring going thru a floor (was told that was not to code). We don’t often trip a breaker. Every so often making coffee and maybe doing one other thing we’ll throw that circuit but generally we are good in that department. We do go thru a lot of lightbulbs. I bitched to the power company. They don’t seem to care. They said their line test was normal. My Furman sometimes reads at 127v coming in. I’m not an electrician but I don’t think that’s normal, nor do I think a house can step UP voltage coming in from the street but what the hell do I know?
 
I googled knob and tube wiring. I haven’t seen anything that looks like that here. The ceiling in the basement is a solid 50% unfinished so I imagine I would have seen that.
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
Hi. Neighbor's house got hit by lightning mere yards away from my office, where my AxeFX3 lives.

I went to turn it on this afternoon, and all seems ok, except AxeEdit says it is "Disconnected".

Tried loading AxeEdit on my travel computer (an old MacBook Air), and it reads "Disconnected" on that as well.

Tried switching out "printer" USB cables, no joy.

The neighbor's roof, where the lightning hit:
20191106_073839.jpg


I guess if there's nothing else to try, it's a call to my homeowner's insurance and cross my fingers the rat bastards actually cover it.
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Oh yes, it can. Certainly and easily.

Of course I had over-voltage-security in several stages and places in my house.

But ...
... several years ago a lightning strike nearby killed half a dozen devices of my equipment, not least a 10k Euro mixing desk.

The lightning entered not over the main power line but over telelephone line, crossed (and killed) the (commercial and expensive) router, crossed all over-voltage-security went forward over the ethernet lines and killed nearly everything connected to ethernet, including mixing desk, computers, tv, recorders and so on.

Was NOT an amusing experience ...
 
My gear does not stay plugged in, and when it is, its surge protected. If there's a storm, I don't play. Learnt my lesson years ago and lost some high end a/v gear and fridge overnight with a power outage. You know those outages that just blink on and off....the worse kind. Since then, if it isn't being used, it's not plugged in.
 
Yes but I mentioned, you need a really expensive APC to handle thunderstorm spikes -- when working in a startup 15+ years ago the neighborhood office was occupied by a company specializing in power handling systems for Silicon Valley companies and they explained to me that a cheap power isolator won't cut it. They said either get a cheap one that does the most common cases or a huge battery-based solution to handle lightning.

Pulling the plug for the whole studio setup is my choice when I hear lightning or taking off for a trip.
 
I've always disconnect from the wall whenever a storm is around as well.

My question though is: Can 'Brown outs' (the opposite to surges) cause electrical damage to gear?
 
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