Avoiding storm spikes

[Vinyldog]

I've been unplugging my L310 every time I see lightening. Overkill or not?

 

[rjssigns]

It's the best way to make absolutely sure. I do the same with my Roland.

 

[Kottwitz-Graphics]

I unplug all my computers and plotters when we get a storm. I've had an electrical strike that took out a computer and plotter...Luckily my insurance paid out and I got new equipment.

 

[Vinyldog]

I have surge protection or battery backup on everything that is 110V but the 310 is 220V so it makes me more nervous.

 

[player]

I have a UPC battery backup. Is that not enough?

 

[bob]

I have a UPC battery backup. Is that not enough?

Probably not. There isn't much if anything a mere mortal can do to deal with a bolt of lightning. Best just to unplug everything.

 

[particleman]

Cheapest way is to unplug important stuff. I worked in IT for a while and the local power company offered an on site lightning arrestor system to our business. It was some kind of box they hooked into the electric system about a foot tall. Explained it would absorb the spike of a surge. They also installed a similar system on the meter base for the owner at the time. So, maybe check with your power company if you are interested in something like that.

 

[SightLine]

I have a UPC battery backup. Is that not enough?

Depends greatly on the UPS. Most all have at minimum the most basic surge suppression. The cheapest ones I'd not feel very confident with for surge protection. We have 3 rather massive (over half of a full size network rack) Eaton datacenter grade UPS's (all 240v but also has 120v outputs as well). Those I trust 100%. We get some very nasty storms here in the south and I've never once had an issue and we keep right on printing through a power outage for up to about an hour before we have to shut down before the batteries die.

Now at an old location we were at about 10 years ago - the power company had their own issue. That one did fry things. Scared the daylights out of everyone. Every UPS, every surge suppressor, everything plugged in everywhere in the building (along with 5 other tenants in the building) all seemed to explode and catch on fire. Nothing really "exploded" but many things popped very loudly and many things were literally on fire. The power company had their insurance adjusters out the next day and paid for everything that was damaged. I asked and they essentially said the lines became directly connected to the building bypassing the transformers in some freak way. If I remember right they said it was something along the lines of 30kv (30,000 volts) at several thousand amps. It was very quick though - all the power went totally out at nearly the same instant that it went nuts. We were essentially out of business for a couple of weeks just fixing and replacing everything. Fortunately most of the computers were fine. The APC surge strips did just what they were supposed to do - sacrificed themselves, although I don't think APC had catching on fire in mind. A lot of stuff was plugged in directly though and most all of that was toast. I have some pictures somewhere or another of a pile of about 30 crispy blackened surge strips and UPS's.