[ARCHIVED THREAD] - lightning! (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 7/4/2011 10:49:34 PM EDT
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My fucking 46" Sony TV and Xbox 360 just got hit by fucking lightning. I had the shit on a surge protector and always unplug them when it starts storming, but I wasn't quick enough to unplug it before I saw a bright flash and heard a loud pop and now the 360 wont turn on and the tv will come on but shut its self off. Fuck! Is there anyway to check and see if the tv is a complete loss? I'm hopping I got lucky and it just popped a fuse or something.
Title edit. Please read the rules regarding profanity in thread titles. ––tbk1> |
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google is fucking awesome:
http://www.justanswer.com/tv-repair/4032q-hello-my-55-sony-wega-went-black-day-it-s.html |
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google is fucking awesome: http://www.justanswer.com/tv-repair/4032q-hello-my-55-sony-wega-went-black-day-it-s.html Yep - now the next step for the OP is to look up a replacement board & hope he can get one cheap. |
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What kind of surge protector? This. A lot of surge protectors will warranty any items destroyed till a certain number of dollars (AKA 80,000 dollar warranty) (dunno if it needs to be registered or something tho) Silly question, but are you sure the surge protector is still working, and not tripped? |
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or, he can send it to me and for half the price of a new one, have it repaired........ guaranteed it's probably a fuse and some caps that took the hit. they don't make the lytics like they used to. This. I had a samsung flatscreen monitor that started to die (flickering) I took it apart and looked at the power supply. Sure enough, it had thre bulgy capacitors. Less than $5 in parts from mouser and about 15 minutes of a friend's labor to fix it. Works like brand new now. |
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A surge protector is for normal voltage transients. It's not going to clamp down on a lightning strike. This is the truth. I had a lightning strike 10 years ago and lost everything. Tv's, cd/dvd, washer/dryer, water softener and even the fuse panel  . Even stuff on a surge protector. When I asked about them the response I got was they will never help in a strike. I now unplug all electronics when a severe storm is in the area.
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A surge protector is for normal voltage transients. It's not going to clamp down on a lightning strike. This is the truth. I had a lightning strike 10 years ago and lost everything. Even stuff on a surge protector. When I asked about them the response I got was they will never help in a strike. I now unplug all electronics when a severe storm is in the area. In addition to the power plugs, Don't forget to pull coax/antenna connections as well |
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or, he can send it to me and for half the price of a new one, have it repaired........ guaranteed it's probably a fuse and some caps that took the hit. they don't make the lytics like they used to. This. I had a samsung flatscreen monitor that started to die (flickering) I took it apart and looked at the power supply. Sure enough, it had thre bulgy capacitors. Less than $5 in parts from mouser and about 15 minutes of a friend's labor to fix it. Works like brand new now. I had three monitors affected by Capacitor Plague. Replaced the dead/bulged caps, and they work again. |
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Before you do anything, check your warranties. I bought a B stock (refurb) Sony XBR-700 60" at Christmas and paid for the extended warranty for two years. Not sure about the standard warranty, but the extended covers lightning strikes as long as you had a surge protector in the system. I even run the cable through the surge protector.
And, not to mention, some surge protectors (APC I think) will provide up to $25,000 of insurance if anything is damaged while plugged into it. JUST DO NOT THROW AWAY THE SURGE PROTECTOR!! Usually they request that you send it in to them for evaluation. |
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Have the same problem here during the monsoon season.
For the last five years I have had my entire audio/video system plugged into a surge protector: http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/surge-protectors/home-theater/1030HT.html which in turn is plugged into a UPS: http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/ups-systems/avr-series-ups/CP1500AVRT.html That includes my 58" plasma TV, Pioneer Elite receiver, Blu-Ray player, and satellite receiver. So far I have never had a single problem, the system works as it should - it allows me plenty of time to properly shut down my system in case of a problem. |
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Have the same problem here during the monsoon season. For the last five years I have had my entire audio/video system plugged into a surge protector: http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/surge-protectors/home-theater/1030HT.html which in turn is plugged into a UPS: http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/ups-systems/avr-series-ups/CP1500AVRT.html That includes my 58" plasma TV, Pioneer Elite receiver, Blu-Ray player, and satellite receiver. So far I have never had a single problem, the system works as it should - it allows me plenty of time to properly shut down my system in case of a problem. Have you ever taken a direct strike to know if your protection works? |
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or, he can send it to me and for half the price of a new one, have it repaired........ guaranteed it's probably a fuse and some caps that took the hit. they don't make the lytics like they used to. This. I had a samsung flatscreen monitor that started to die (flickering) I took it apart and looked at the power supply. Sure enough, it had thre bulgy capacitors. Less than $5 in parts from mouser and about 15 minutes of a friend's labor to fix it. Works like brand new now. A radio-shack soldering iron, a solder sucker and some caps will fix you right up. It's not real hard. I had to fix my Samsung and it's shitty cheap ass caps too. |
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or, he can send it to me and for half the price of a new one, have it repaired........ guaranteed it's probably a fuse and some caps that took the hit. they don't make the lytics like they used to. This. I had a samsung flatscreen monitor that started to die (flickering) I took it apart and looked at the power supply. Sure enough, it had thre bulgy capacitors. Less than $5 in parts from mouser and about 15 minutes of a friend's labor to fix it. Works like brand new now. A radio-shack soldering iron, a solder sucker and some caps will fix you right up. It's not real hard. I had to fix my Samsung and it's shitty cheap ass caps too. generally, i would agree, if you were working on a circuit board that had a decently made substrate and copper clad that was slightly thicker than a coat of wax. point being, too much heat on those boards and you can screw the traces something fierce. |
now I have the TV and associated gear on a big ass APC server sized UPS.
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Have the same problem here during the monsoon season. For the last five years I have had my entire audio/video system plugged into a surge protector: http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/surge-protectors/home-theater/1030HT.html which in turn is plugged into a UPS: http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/ups-systems/avr-series-ups/CP1500AVRT.html That includes my 58" plasma TV, Pioneer Elite receiver, Blu-Ray player, and satellite receiver. So far I have never had a single problem, the system works as it should - it allows me plenty of time to properly shut down my system in case of a problem. Have you ever taken a direct strike to know if your protection works? If he took a direct strike, he'd only be testing the turnaround time on the insurance. |
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Have the same problem here during the monsoon season. For the last five years I have had my entire audio/video system plugged into a surge protector: http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/surge-protectors/home-theater/1030HT.html which in turn is plugged into a UPS: http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/ups-systems/avr-series-ups/CP1500AVRT.html That includes my 58" plasma TV, Pioneer Elite receiver, Blu-Ray player, and satellite receiver. So far I have never had a single problem, the system works as it should - it allows me plenty of time to properly shut down my system in case of a problem. Have you ever taken a direct strike to know if your protection works? If he took a direct strike, he'd only be testing the turnaround time on the insurance. I agree but he put up $320 to try to protect his stuff. And OP be thankful you just lost your tv and xbox. And get ahold of you insurance company. I found out mine covered damage done by the fire department. I was very glad they showed up just to be sure. Had no fire but it was still a mess. Black streaks on the sheetrock from the wires overloading are scary. |
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Quoted: A surge protector is for normal voltage transients. It's not going to clamp down on a lightning strike. This, a surge suppressor only limits high voltage transients. It does nothing for high voltage spikes or undervoltage brownout conditions. I have a UPS with surge suppressors for my sensitive electronics. The UPS seems to do the job for brownouts and if a high voltage transient occurs, it should fry the UPS first followed by the surge suppressors. Also, check to see it is really a surge suppressor and not just a power strip. If your surge suppressor protected your devices once in the past, you need to get a new one. The TVSS chips aren't usually good for multiple events, sort of like kevlar vests or motorcycle helmets. |
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Have the same problem here during the monsoon season. For the last five years I have had my entire audio/video system plugged into a surge protector: http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/surge-protectors/home-theater/1030HT.html which in turn is plugged into a UPS: http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/products/ups-systems/avr-series-ups/CP1500AVRT.html That includes my 58" plasma TV, Pioneer Elite receiver, Blu-Ray player, and satellite receiver. So far I have never had a single problem, the system works as it should - it allows me plenty of time to properly shut down my system in case of a problem. Have you ever taken a direct strike to know if your protection works? In all honesty, I've never taken a direct lightning strike - or if I have I'm unaware of it. I already knew that the surge protector alone would never ever hold back a lightning strike (or even come close). The UPS was originally purchased because we do have MANY MANY power outages, brown-outs, and glitches here do to lightning strikes and I originally had a 52" DLP TV that absolutely had to run it's power down cycle to cool the projection bulb properly so that was the main purpose of the UPS (the plasma TV doesn't need the power down cycle). But it does add another layer of separation between my equipment and the "grid". Would my equipment survive a direct hit? I don't know, all the power lines in my neighborhood are delivered underground and I have no idea where the area transformer is located... The price for "piece-of-mind" protection I considered acceptable considering what the combined cost of my home theater stuff - plus there is always that insurance...... 
ETA: Newegg sells the stuff a bit less expensive than MSRP.... |
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Just for note...
Underground power lines don't mean shit. My lightning strike came via a tree in my front yard. After the lightning hit the tree it ran down a branch the size of a pencil and jumped into the house. Blew all the pictures off the wall in that room, destroyed both windows that had metal frames, got into the wiring and the rest was history. Make sure to document all conversations with your insurance company. This is very important. In my mind "If in doubt, unplug" |
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My fucking 46" Sony TV and Xbox 360 just got hit by fucking lightning. I had the shit on a surge protector and always unplug them when it starts storming, but I wasn't quick enough to unplug it before I saw a bright flash and heard a loud pop and now the 360 wont turn on and the tv will come on but shut its self off. Fuck! Is there anyway to check and see if the tv is a complete loss? I'm hopping I got lucky and it just popped a fuse or something. The Xbox is likely a loss. Sorry man. If the television turns off after coming on, and you get sound etc, it's not a fuse. If it were a fuse the television wouldn't even turn on at all. The beauty of lightning is that it operates exactly the same as an EMP strike! It creates a high voltage ground situation. Cool huh? Guess whose television's gonna get zapped when defecation hits oscillation? Sorry for that. Anyways, if the television turns off after coming on like you say, chances are your lightning strike either burned the power transformer or one of the capacitors that feed it. If you take it to a electronics repair place they should be able to fix it for around $100 - $200. They'll likely have to desolder those components, replace them and then look for *OTHER* high ground damage. P.S. Surge Suppressors don't work depending on where the lightning hit. If it was the antenna/cable, both your xbox and television could've gotten zapped that way too and your cable likely didn't go through the surge suppressor. Those things give a false sense of security. |
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my house gets hit by lightening about every 7 years or so. i've found its generally a fantastic way to get a whole lot of updated replacement appliances and whatnot as long as it doesnt kill me. the last strike was about 5 years ago and came with a hail storm from hell, which tore up the roof (had to be replaced). the bolt hit the corner of the house and traveled thru several circuits and basically killed everything that was connected to them, including a heat-pump, TV, computer, etc. etc. insurance replaced everything. thankfully it was raining hard as the lightening blew a hole in the house which started a small fire. the rain put it out so i guess it could have been much worse. not sure why my house gets hit with somewhat regularity. i've talked to several engineering/scientist types at work about it and they couldnt explain why my particular house might get hit more than others. one guy said the only solution was to move....
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What I have all of my electronics plugged into. I live in Fla and have very frequent lightning storms.
APC Says "Protection from surges, spikes and even lightning is guaranteed!". |
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My fucking 46" Sony TV and Xbox 360 just got hit by fucking lightning. I had the shit on a surge protector and always unplug them when it starts storming, but I wasn't quick enough to unplug it before I saw a bright flash and heard a loud pop and now the 360 wont turn on and the tv will come on but shut its self off. Fuck! Is there anyway to check and see if the tv is a complete loss? I'm hopping I got lucky and it just popped a fuse or something. The Xbox is likely a loss. Sorry man. If the television turns off after coming on, and you get sound etc, it's not a fuse. If it were a fuse the television wouldn't even turn on at all. The beauty of lightning is that it operates exactly the same as an EMP strike! It creates a high voltage ground situation. Cool huh? Guess whose television's gonna get zapped when defecation hits oscillation? Sorry for that. Anyways, if the television turns off after coming on like you say, chances are your lightning strike either burned the power transformer or one of the capacitors that feed it. If you take it to a electronics repair place they should be able to fix it for around $100 - $200. They'll likely have to desolder those components, replace them and then look for *OTHER* high ground damage. P.S. Surge Suppressors don't work depending on where the lightning hit. If it was the antenna/cable, both your xbox and television could've gotten zapped that way too and your cable likely didn't go through the surge suppressor. Those things give a false sense of security. both parts in red: not entirely true. the benefit to having an external power supply is that if the power supply is fried, it usually just fries the supply, and being separate from the unit it is supply power to, is easier to replace as a whole. the t.v., not just one fuse in those damn things anymore. i have an old rca rear projection from '04 that the convergence occasionally goes wacko due to the inevitable cold solder joints created by years of use around flyback transformer. when the arcing from the cold solder joint get bad enough, it will surely pop at least 1 of the 3 fuses simply for the flyback circuitry alone. |
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From an article found on the internet -
So how much energy is loitering up there? Each lightning flash is about 3 miles long but only about a centimetre wide. It discharges about 1-10 billion joules of energy and produces a current of some 30,000 - 50,000 amps, which heats the surrounding air to over 20,000 degrees Celsius, three times hotter than the surface of the sun (6000 degrees Celsius). In fact a single lightning bolt unleashes as much energy as blowing up a ton of TNT. And although it might look like a single flash, a strike is actually made up of between three and twelve individual lightning 'strokes', each lasting only a few thousandths of a second. This is what makes lightning appear to flicker. One to ten billion joules of energy!!! Now you can see why a puny surge protector (mine is good for 6000 joules) or much of anything else for that matter doesn't stand much of a chance against a direct lightning strike. Insurance is your friend..... |
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or, he can send it to me and for half the price of a new one, have it repaired........ guaranteed it's probably a fuse and some caps that took the hit. they don't make the lytics like they used to. +1. The whole school of thought that LCDs and plasmas are "throw-away" electronics that are not worth getting fixed is a bunch of BS spread around by salesmen. Never trust someone who makes money selling widgets to tell you when a widget is worth fixing. My dad repairs electronics. Most of the problems are in the power supplies and can be fixed for MUCH less than buying a new one. |
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What I have all of my electronics plugged into. I live in Fla and have very frequent lightning storms. APC Says "Protection from surges, spikes and even lightning is guaranteed!". there are no guarantees. i used to work for a company that had large mainframe computers, run off of large battery banks, with diesel generators as backup. industrial size stuff. building took a direct lightning hit and blew out a bunch of stuff. i still have a fuse that was blown, 300 amps 600 volts ac. weighs around 10 pounds. never forget talking to the electrician that fixed things. he said lighting hits you right, nothing will protect your stuff. he'd seen sparks jump over a foot. best thing you can do in a large storm is simply disconnect everything. if there is intense lightning in a storm thats what i do. |
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What I have all of my electronics plugged into. I live in Fla and have very frequent lightning storms. APC Says "Protection from surges, spikes and even lightning is guaranteed!". there are no guarantees. i used to work for a company that had large mainframe computers, run off of large battery banks, with diesel generators as backup. industrial size stuff. building took a direct lightning hit and blew out a bunch of stuff. i still have a fuse that was blown, 300 amps 600 volts ac. weighs around 10 pounds. never forget talking to the electrician that fixed things. he said lighting hits you right, nothing will protect your stuff. he'd seen sparks jump over a foot. best thing you can do in a large storm is simply disconnect everything. if there is intense lightning in a storm thats what i do. Maybe not complete protection for the existing equipment, but running on UPS systems has saved a lot of our gear through bad brown outs, black outs, power spikes, etc where neighbors and neighboring businesses experienced losses. That said, we've had APC pay out on a lightning strike to the comm system wires and their service process was clean and prompt (equivalent of a good insurance policy). The whole experience was still a pain to go through, but sometimes even a little less suck in a world of suckage is very welcome. (BTW - The competitor system was the opposite of APC. I'll never buy anything but APC for UPS systems again, and I have several smaller home systems and well as large rackmounts at our offices). |
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this is why my electronics that cost a good penny sit on a UPS....if anything happens APC replaces shit with little issue.
UPS's are good juju to have around, especially for brownouts and voltage dips....ive got a couple that have been hit hard as hell and still work without a hiccup |
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My fucking 46" Sony TV and Xbox 360 just got hit by fucking lightning. I had the shit on a surge protector and always unplug them when it starts storming, but I wasn't quick enough to unplug it before I saw a bright flash and heard a loud pop and now the 360 wont turn on and the tv will come on but shut its self off. Fuck! Is there anyway to check and see if the tv is a complete loss? I'm hopping I got lucky and it just popped a fuse or something. The Xbox is likely a loss. Sorry man. If the television turns off after coming on, and you get sound etc, it's not a fuse. If it were a fuse the television wouldn't even turn on at all. The beauty of lightning is that it operates exactly the same as an EMP strike! It creates a high voltage ground situation. Cool huh? Guess whose television's gonna get zapped when defecation hits oscillation? Sorry for that. Anyways, if the television turns off after coming on like you say, chances are your lightning strike either burned the power transformer or one of the capacitors that feed it. If you take it to a electronics repair place they should be able to fix it for around $100 - $200. They'll likely have to desolder those components, replace them and then look for *OTHER* high ground damage. P.S. Surge Suppressors don't work depending on where the lightning hit. If it was the antenna/cable, both your xbox and television could've gotten zapped that way too and your cable likely didn't go through the surge suppressor. Those things give a false sense of security. both parts in red: not entirely true. the benefit to having an external power supply is that if the power supply is fried, it usually just fries the supply, and being separate from the unit it is supply power to, is easier to replace as a whole. the t.v., not just one fuse in those damn things anymore. i have an old rca rear projection from '04 that the convergence occasionally goes wacko due to the inevitable cold solder joints created by years of use around flyback transformer. when the arcing from the cold solder joint get bad enough, it will surely pop at least 1 of the 3 fuses simply for the flyback circuitry alone. I guess it could be a possibility that the xbox isn't fried, but considering that they're prone to taking a shit if you sneeze at them, I'm going to go with, "It's probably a loss." If the voltage spike came down the antenna, be it cable or otherwise, the Xbox is most likely toasted. I have a nearly identical television to the one he's got and there isn't three fuses in there. Just one and it's in the power supply circuit, I think on the ground side, so if that fuse is popped, it won't even turn on. If the surge came down the antenna it'd have found ground through power, bursting a couple capacitors, but more likely that power transformer. OP, go sniff the back of the television, does it smell like a cat turd covered in burnt hair? |
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Well some good news, the xbox was spared. I tested it out with my buddies power supply and it works like a charm, so I got Microsoft to send a new one my way. I talked to Sony about the TV and told them what it was doing and they put me in touch with a local repair center to have it fixed under warranty. Great customer service on both of their parts. Now to get a good setup so this doesn't happen again.
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