Lets Play Sherlock Holmes - The lightning incident.....

[Crowz]

Any time we had wiring of any kind exiting or entering a building, we always put lightning protection at both ends.
Most of the time a lightning strike would take out the protection and still get our equipment.

Well there is a reason I'm all over this method being discussed and it is ALL based on the insurance company I have.

State Farm.

They are on a warpath cancelling peoples insurance that makes claims. Now the strike your referring to is mass damage. I would make a mass damage claim since it would cost a fortune out of my pocket.

Minor claims which this would be even if it was a bit worse isn't happening since they are the cheapest insurance around here to insure the house with.

So if I can spend some money and do some work to prevent this kind of minor effects in the future it makes perfect sense to at least try.

 

[Bob B]

When we installed lightning protectors each one of them had their own ground rod that wasn't connected to anything except that lightning protector ...... I don't know the engineering behind that, but each company I worked for had the same install specs for those protectors.

 

[Bob B]

Well there is a reason I'm all over this method being discussed and it is ALL based on the insurance company I have.

State Farm.

They are on a warpath cancelling peoples insurance that makes claims. Now the strike your referring to is mass damage. I would make a mass damage claim since it would cost a fortune out of my pocket.

Minor claims which this would be even if it was a bit worse isn't happening since they are the cheapest insurance around here to insure the house with.

So if I can spend some money and do some work to prevent this kind of minor effects in the future it makes perfect sense to at least try.

We were able to improve our odds ..... but never gained total protection .... Your mileage may vary.

When we could prove lightning damage to our equipment it was always on their insurance to cover the damage, not our maintenance contract.
I don't know the details of how the customer insured themselves .... maybe there are insurers who specifically cover acts of god? Maybe take it outside homeowners insurance?

 

[AntronX]

Any time we had wiring of any kind exiting or entering a building, we always put lightning protection at both ends. Most of the time a lightning strike would take out the protection and still get our equipment.

When we installed lightning protectors each one of them had their own ground rod that wasn't connected to anything except that lightning protector

Yea that will kill your equipment.

 

[Hedges]

State Farm. They wrote my new homeowner's policy, just before ceasing writing in California.
They're now planning to cancel some. I'm hoping that's only houses next to forests, not in the middle of a large city.

Any electronics you have probably costs about as much as an insurance premium. Self-insure and don't file a claim.

 

[Bob B]

Yea that will kill your equipment.

That was per the spec of the lightning protectors we used .... They had to be able to shunt the spike directly to ground or they couldn't work.
The ground rod wasn't connected to the equipment in any way, only to one of the leads of the lightning protection.
I'm aware of the risk of multiple grounds in an electrical system .... we worked to avoid that also .... the lightning protectors were a special case where each one had to have their own driven ground

 

[AntronX]

That was per the spec of the lightning protectors we used

Somebody misinterpreted the spec or used wrong type of protectors. Having multiple unbonded ground rods across your equipment is like the worst thing you can do in terms of avoiding ground potential surge pickup. You literally had differential earth current pickup rods wired across your equipment. No wonder lighting strikes blew up your stuff.

 

[ricardocello]

I would actually be putting one of these at each of the 4 different array sites I have

i’ve got one of those for each ground mount string (3 total)
i’ve also got one 220 feet away where the pv enters the house
so far, so good

I’ve got multiple square D surge protectors in multiple panels for the AC side

My video cameras use shielded cat5 up to the camera, and PoE power supplies with surge protection.
I’ve got gas discharge tubes in the patch panel before plugging into network gear.

does any of this help? hard to say, but that’s the extent of my budget for protection

 

[Bob B]

Somebody misinterpreted the spec or used wrong type of protectors. Having multiple unbonded ground rods across your equipment is like the worst thing you can do in terms of avoiding ground potential surge pickup. You literally had differential earth current pickup rods wired across your equipment. No wonder lighting strikes blew up your stuff.

I guess all the engineers across 3 different companies I worked for misinterpreted the specs ..... These ground rods were in no way connected to our equipment .... the path to ground for the lightning protector was totally separate.

If you didn't do it that way, where would the spike be shunted to?

 

[AntronX]

These ground rods were in no way connected to our equipment .... the path to ground for the lightning protector was totally separate.

Oh the lightning "protector" is a type of lightning rod or air terminal? By lightning protector I thought you meant a surge protector that connected your electrical or data line entering the building to a ground rod.

 

[timselectric]

So it wouldn't effect power going from the array? So I need one on each end of the pv wires?

They protect whatever is at the end that they are connected to.
You are protecting what is connected to the wires, from the surge induced on the wires.

 

[Bob B]

Oh the lightning "protector" is a type of lightning rod or air terminal? By lightning protector I thought you meant a surge protector that connected your electrical or data line entering the building to a ground rod.

It had an active element that triggered at specified voltage level and shunted the voltage spike directly to ground thru a dedicated driven ground rod. It was a type of diode similar to a high current zener diode.

 

[Hedges]

And should also trigger to transfer elevated earth voltage to PV wires, allowing lightning current an easier path to reach your house.

 

[AntronX]

It had an active element that triggered at specified voltage level and shunted the voltage spike directly to ground thru a dedicated driven ground rod.

OK yep it was a voltage surge protector. My original comment stands. Connecting it to separate unbonded ground rod was very wrong way to do it.

 

[Bob B]

And should also trigger to transfer elevated earth voltage to PV wires, allowing lightning current an easier path to reach your house.

It was a type of diode with current only flowing in one direction .... to ground.

 

[Bob B]

OK yep it was a voltage surge protector. My original comment stands. Connecting it to separate unbonded ground rod was very wrong way to do it.

You didn't answer my question .... where would you be shunting the voltage spike? Nothing had any path to ground til the lightning strike occurred.

2 of these companies were fortune 500 countries with the engineering for this type thing done at a corporate level .... Maybe I can put you in touch with their engineers.

 

[AntronX]

You didn't answer my question .... where would you be shunting the voltage spike?

To a common low impedance ground point so that differential current across the lines entering your building would not develop. You don't actually need to shunt it to earth ground, you need to shunt it to a common point of a ground system akin to a Faraday cage. This is why being inside metal car keeps you safe from lighting even if the car is not grounded. But that is also not completely correct way of protecting your equipment from lightning surges. All your lines entering the building have to enter at one physical point or be routed to one common ground point before fanning out to you equipment. This is called single point grounding. This eliminates a possibility of differential current developing across lines due to ground system impedance that will always be there.

2 of these companies were fortune 500 countries with the engineering for this type thing done at a corporate level

I am sorry to hear that.

 

[Bob B]

To a common low impedance ground point so that differential voltage across the lines entering your building would not develop. You don't actually need to shunt it to earth ground, you need to shunt it to a common point of a ground system akin to a Faraday cage. This is why being inside metal car keeps you safe from lighting even if the car is not grounded. But that is also not completely correct way of protecting your equipment from lightning surges. All your lines entering the building have to enter at one physical point or be routed to one common ground point before fanning out to you equipment. This is called single point grounding. This eliminates a possibility of differential voltage developing across lines due to ground system impedance that will always be there.

I am sorry to hear that.

Guess we are going to have to disagree ..... The last place I would want to shunt a lightning strike it to a common ground that would be blown open and voltage surged to every piece of equipment attached to it.

 

[AntronX]

The last place I would want to shunt a lightning strike it to a common ground that would be blown open and voltage surged to every piece of equipment attached to it.

If a strike causes your grounding system to blow open then conductors were not large enough. You actually do want strike voltage to rise equally across all equipment (common voltage) so that differential current across equipment does not develop which is what does the damage.

 

[bobcov]

Now for the sleuthing part of this.

In that split second of strike two things occured.

One the tp6048's display messed up and now just shows error 32 but the unit is still working fine making power from the solar panels and running on the battery as needed and using grid power as needed. All working fine I just can't see anything other than error 32 on the display and its not talking to the pi running solar assistant.

Two the 12v system's go wise inverter turned off. I was able to press the power button and it turned right back on and is working perfectly.

So the question is what happened?

What effected my equipment?

I'm late to the party and haven't read other answers, but I am going to guess this is ground potential rise caused by the strike energizing the ground and sending spikes in through the grounding of the system.