plasmadrive Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 (edited) The Plasma Icicles have been running flawlessly for 3 years now. When I first put them up back then I had noise issues that I tracked down and solved.. however, in the process of doing all the tracking down I did something that I think caused me some grief. The Plasma Icicles are mounted on Steel Conduit (EMT) to make it easy to install and remove. During the noise search I started connecting the power supply common to the conduits, sort of like a shielding perhaps. (this is how I found the bad DC converters). Anyway, never disconnected that power supply common from the EMT because I thought it couldn't hurt. I never did ground it all to earth ground.... didn't think I needed to.Last Sat night we had one hell of an electrical storm. Monday I found out that the Plasma Icicles and the Window frames were not working I have spent the last 5 days troubleshooting and repairing. Here is what I think happened. I think the lightning that was very close by got me with an EMP. The conduit exacerbated the problem by acting like a long linear conductor. So far the body count is hundreds of pixels, one E6804, two J1S Pixel Extenders, one Pixlite Long Range remote board, hundreds of wire ties and lots of man and equipment hours. (bucket truck). I have not fixed the DMX output yet.. hopefully it is from the pixel controller and not the drivers for the floods.. That would be all bad. My recommendation is not to use metal conduit as a hanger for pixels unless you tie it solidly to earth ground. Shut off the power if you think a lightning storm is coming. Keep a lot of spare parts on hand. Edited October 9, 2015 by plasmadrive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mega Arch Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Thanks for sharing. Maybe it will get others to thinking before they're in the same boat. I said it before, but that really stinks. Especially this close to show time.Hopefully you're on the downhill now. Take care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasmadrive Posted October 9, 2015 Author Share Posted October 9, 2015 (edited) Thanks Mega Arch. Add to my dead parts list one 24vdc supply. That fixed my DMX floods. We have never had a storm like that one as far as I know. The conduit is even up under the eves of the house.. and fronted by metal gutters about 1/2 the distance.. but none of that mattered.. I should have grounded it to the earth ground and I know it. I just finished the repairs.. took me 4.5 days... The worse part is we have a "special event" coming up next week and the reason it is all up so early is just for that event. Now that I am a week or so behind in programming.. some late nights are in my future it seems.. Phew! EDIT: Add to the body count, one 24vdc power supply. Edited October 9, 2015 by plasmadrive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Sorry for your loss Unfortunately you are finding out that long runs of metal, be they conduit, extension cords, or even CAT5 cables, are awesome antennas for all those electrons running around out there. A lot of people are confused and believe that Ben Franklin and his kite discovered electricity. That is not true. In fact, electric current was known about and discovered several centuries before ole Ben was born. There are even theories that say in the Middle East/Egypt they were electroplating by using crude batteries sometime between 250BC and 250AD. What old Ben was trying to and actually DID discover was that the atmosphere has an electrical charge, and therefore lightning must also be caused by an electrical charge. That charge increases during turbulent weather. Another misconception is that Ben's kite was struck by lightning. It was not -- it simply acted as a long wire up to the sky. The 'spark' Ben saw going from the kite to his hand (or possibly even the other way around) was not a lightning strike but rather the difference in potential from up in the sky vs down here on the ground during the storm. Lightning with it's hundreds of millions of volts and hundreds of thousands of amps pushes a lot of electrons around - even ones some distance away. Those electrons can very easily cause induction currents to form in wire/metal/etc. Should that current find a path to a different potential - say through your pixels, controllers, or whatever- that is the direction that it will go. If the induction current is higher than what the electronics can handle then things break. Thankfully, this happens a lot less often than you would think. But it DOES happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasmadrive Posted October 9, 2015 Author Share Posted October 9, 2015 Thanks,DevMike, I had never heard of anyone having this issue before with Christmas lights.. and quite frankly I would not have had this special event not come up causing me to put them up earlier than normal. I had never even given Lightning a second thought is all this.. But I can tell you I will now. I hope it doesn't happen to others.. That is why I posted my screw up.. so it might help someone else. The sad thing in all this is that I know better and how to at least attempt to keep it from happening.. but it never even crossed my mind that I needed so. I didn't even know we were having a storm until the next day. So before the next storm I will ground all that conduit for sure.. I have already removed the attachments to the power supply commons. Once grounded that would be an issue I don't think.. But it sure was this time.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ItsMeBobO Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Sorry to hear you got hit. Last October my display was hit. There was a rain storm and lightning strikes. No evidence of lighting on the house but the display was whacked hard. Three neighbors reported a very load bang. I also have my four upright CCRs mounted on metal conduit for rigidity but they are touching the ground with a metal stake. It seems to me the surge entered the house via the cat-5 to blow two adapters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plasmadrive Posted October 9, 2015 Author Share Posted October 9, 2015 Sorry to hear you got hit. Last October my display was hit. There was a rain storm and lightning strikes. No evidence of lighting on the house but the display was whacked hard. Three neighbors reported a very load bang. I also have my four upright CCRs mounted on metal conduit for rigidity but they are touching the ground with a metal stake. It seems to me the surge entered the house via the cat-5 to blow two adapters. So Bob, did your CCRs get hit or did the grounding save them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ItsMeBobO Posted October 10, 2015 Share Posted October 10, 2015 In addition to the metal conduit I have airplane cable guy wires between the trees and house with cat-5 tied to it! Its a lightning rod/pulse attracter for sure. But I think the point of entry was a cat-5 coupler which was on the roof uncovered. I have 10 adapters and 2 blew. One of them on the long run with the coupler. Changed that out for a 100ft continuous cable. All 4 on conduit and 4 other CCRs survived. All the controller and string fails were the green CCB/P boxes. Two on the line with the coupler along the roof line and the rest on the matrix boards. Guessing the surge came into the house via network cable then to adapter then usb hub then back out to the other adapter then back out to the other boxes. These are convenient but I now suggest you don't use or cover them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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