Electrical Question
YankeeMan
Posts: 2,654 ✭✭✭✭✭
We had a very bad thunder storm yesterday and I happened to be standing in the den tying to calm our dogs down. The TV was on when a lightening bolt seemed to hit close to the house. I heard a loud snapping sound and the TV went off.
Nothing else went off, including those items plugged into the same power strip. The TV is completely fried, yet nothing else is damaged. My question is how did the TV get fried but nothing else got damaged?
0
Comments
The surge could have traveled in through a cable connection instead of the electrical connection. You can get surge protectors for phone lines, cable lines, etc. besides your power lines. When I worked on towers, we'd put a ground kit at the top of the tower under the antenna, at the bottom of the tower, and a surge arrestor at the entrance to the building to try and protect the equipment.
That makes sense. The power strip has a surge protector built in. Now the question is any damage to the cable, although it's buried underground. I'm getting a new TV on Friday and I hope it works. That's our only TV so I have no way to test it.
Our internet from the same provider is working and I think that comes in from the same cable, so it may be OK.
Same thing happened to our neighbor's router one time. Apparently the outside cable line was not grounded, or something. But it totally got fried through the cable line, not the outlet.
If the surge protector isn't fried and there is no black or anything on the power cord prongs for the TV then it is highly likely it came in through another cable. Either way buy a new surge protector just to be safe, most protectors are cheap, most TV's are not.
Also look into a whole house surge protector and there is even one you can request or get the power company to install on the electrical meter to be extra safe. Also check the fuse if the TV has one, might of got super lucky and just a small amount of current made it through and the fuze saved it or it all made it through and completely fried or came in from another line Yak already mentioned.
Yup. We have a ground on our coax cable from our antennae and cable and both run through a surge protector.
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.
Thank you all, will do.
@YankeeMan I don't know if it's worth it to you or not, but I had this happen to one of my flat screen TV's years ago, and I pulled it apart to look at the circuit board, found the part that had the black scorch mark (which made it simple), then realized it was a small component of the main board, and it even had a number on it. I looked it up on Ebay, cost me $3.50 to have it shipped from Chi-Chi-China, popped it in and it worked like new.
Until it got fried a second time and I just have it sitting in storage all lonely because it was time to upgrade anyway.
I appreciate that. I wound up ordering a new one as this one was pretty old and didn't have the bells and whistles of the new flat screen TV's.
We had that happen umpteen years ago. We lived in townhouses. Lightning hit the yard. TVs got fried for various neighbors via coax cable buried in the yard. You could tell where it came in by the scorchmarks.
New TV installed and working. Provider is coming Monday to put a surge protector on the incoming cable. Any storms before then, I'm turning the bleeping TV off.
And don’t forget to unplug it... 😜