I recently had a lighting strike and lost about $1000 worth of equipment. I’d like to reduce the chance of that happening again so I’m looking for advice.

I have a UDM in my house, with a 125 foot run underground in conduit to my barn. In the barn, I have a POE switch that feeds 10 cameras and an Ubiquiti AP. I’d like to add a ground somewhere. I just purchased a surge protector with ethernet for the barn, since the switch is currently plugged in directly to an outlet and should be protected anyway. I also bought this from APC for my equipment in the house. I was going to install that between my UDM and POE switch in the house, then ground it to an outlet.

I’m reading so much information about how to go about this. My barn is powered with 220v from my house, so 4 wires go to the barn H/H/N/G. the ground on the barn is the same ground as the house. If I use both devices can that create a ground loop in the event of a surge? I’m also reading that I can use the APC at any point on my network to provide protection. Is this correct?

Please don’t suggest fiber runs, as the cable is already run and I don’t plan on redoing it. Thank you all in advance.

  • PaulEngineer-89@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I think you need a much better understanding of surge protection and lightning protection.

    The first thing to look at is the passive protection. If you have a grounded metal structure anything within a 35 degree angle from the highest point is protected. It is slightly better, Google “rolling sphere” model. You need at least 2 ground rods and stranded grounding cables running to the ground rods. Do NOT share with the electrical ground and stay at least 10 feet away. Run fiber, NOT copper between buildings. If you can’t there are special surge arresters using PIN diodes or GDTs but it’s not ideal. Put one at each end.

    That takes care of protecting against direct strikes. The rest is dealing with indirect strikes Put surge arresters on ALL attached lines…power or network. Keep in mind you get about 20 V of rise per inch away from the surge arrester so they really offer very little protection more than a few feet away. Standards test equipment against surges at a peak voltage equal to twice the nominal (marked) voltage plus 1,000 V

    This also protects against switching surges that are far more common compared to lightning strikes.