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This is your system on juice....

jjamesjjames AMX Sustaining Engineer
in AMX General Discussion
This is what happens when a house is not properly grounded. This is the 2nd time this has happened over there. I should have saved the other pieces & card frames, to show you more - but this is just an NI-4000. Check out the relay housing and some of the chips on there.

First time - smoke was coming out of the walls from a lightning hit. Twice in one year. I think I'd be after the electrician or whoever wired the high voltage stuff. The house's circuit breaker has never tripped after a lightning hit, and all surge protects say they were fine. Talk about insane.
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Comments

  • Spire_JeffSpire_Jeff Formerly Caffeinated Programmer
    Were any of the relays in use on the processor? We had a processor get fried, and we think it was through the relays. The gate installer never bothered grounding the control box and had a wire shoved through a piece of PVC pipe and sticking up in the area acting as the antenna for the wireless transmitter. The processor didn't get to the point of smoking, but it ceased to function. It is/was on a battery backup unit and oddly enough the only other electronic equipment that ceased functioning was the gate controller. Crazier still, this all happened on the day a big storm blew through.... wonder what happened??? :)

    We haven't had to connect to anything relay driven recently, but the incident has caused us to do some research. We found a part that attaches inline to protect against power surges. It's like a standard fuse, but they were better. I, for the life of me, can't find the information at the moment, but as I recall, they were better than just putting fuses inline. Regardless, on the rare occasions where we have to use the relays on a processor, that is included.

    Jeff
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  • jjamesjjames AMX Sustaining Engineer
    Well - this house, I swear isn't grounded at all. I couldn't be. How else could you explain phones literally being blown off of the wall, smoke pouring out of the light switches, and an Escient's serial ports blown, along with two Integra DVD serial ports blown, along with satellite boxes, etc. etc.

    Regardless of what kind of system / precautions you take, I think very little is going to protect you with a near direct hit (12 ft. from house.)

    The relays were probably not in use - they only controlled shades. Anyone ever taken an NI-4000 apart - big case for little circuit boards! :p
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  • DHawthorneDHawthorne Junior Member
    I had an Axcent3 fry once through the serial port. Lightning hit the ground in the customer's yard (there were eyewitnesses), and the Lutron link wire that connected the pool house lighting to the main house lighting took the burst. The Lutron adapters on either end of the link blew, but not the Lutron processor, but the Axcent3 lost the serial port connected to the Lutron, and later just started acting funny and had to be completely replaced.
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