M1G board LEDs blinking after lightning strike

[AUGrad98]

My home had lightning run in last night.  Along with some other things, the ELK M1G seems to have taken a hit.  I have it connected to ethernet and phone.  I believe the lightning came into the house over the telephone line (ATT Uverse phone/tv/internet service -- ATT gateway also fried).  Ever since the lightning, the board has had blinking LEDs.  The power LED comes on with the switch, but after a few seconds the 'TELCO SEIZED', 'DIALER ACTIVE', 'Status', and 'OUT3 On LED' all start constantly blinking.  Both keypads show 'No Comm' (I think -- I'm not home right now).
 
I've tried adding power with no input or outputs plugged in.  Same result.  I can't find anything that describes this particular blink pattern.  Is it a bad board?
 
Thanks for any help!

 

[drvnbysound]

I'm not sure about the blink pattern of the board, but my gut feeling is that it's been fried. I'd suggest giving Elk tech support a call and see if they can walk you though anything over the phone. Maybe you can just send it back for repair as opposed to requiring a replacement.
 
Having said that, here's a white paper Elk has on surge suppression and lightning: http://www.elkproducts.com/LiteratureRetrieve.aspx?ID=76081
It's a bit late now, but would be a good thing to implement once you get this issue sorted out.

 

[AUGrad98]

Thanks for the reply.  I have the ELK-952 installed.  After thinking about it a little more, my garage door opener was also affected by the lightning.  I have an output running from the ELK M1G (via ELK-M1RB) to the garage door opener.  I wonder if the opener was the source and the surge went back to the ELK first and then on to the ATT gateway via ethernet.  I have no idea.  Lightning can do weird things.  :huh:

 

[mikefamig]

First I would check the DC supply on the board to see if the power supply is correct. I would also strip the system down to bare essentials disconnecting everything but a keypad, speaker and a zone or two and see how it behaves.
 
Mike.

 

[drvnbysound]

Thanks for the reply.  I have the ELK-952 installed.  After thinking about it a little more, my garage door opener was also affected by the lightning.  I have an output running from the ELK M1G (via ELK-M1RB) to the garage door opener.  I wonder if the opener was the source and the surge went back to the ELK first and then on to the ATT gateway via ethernet.  I have no idea.  Lightning can do weird things.  :huh:

 
Your initial post mentioned that "the lightning came into the house over the telephone line", so it's good that you had the 952 installed. I agree that lightning can do a lot of weird things and create quite the destruction path. Understand that the Elk-950 also provides protection for the Elk input power path.
 
Mike's suggestion to strip down the system is certainly a good one; that could tell you quite a bit, but I'd still end up calling Elk to run through everything with them as well.

 

[AUGrad98]

Thanks for the replies.  I did make the assumption that the lightning came in over the telephone.  Since my ATT gateway was completely dead (and a netgear gigabit switch plugged into the gateway), but my computer was fine.  The gateway, switch, and computer were all plugged into the same UPS.  I figured it had to be the telephone/ethernet.  However, the ATT tech came and replaced the gateway and all was working.  He said there were no signs of a surge on the outside of the house where the phone line came in.  Maybe it was the garage door opener after all, and it fed the surge back to all of the other stuff through the ELK.  That would seem to be the only path with no surge suppression (opener -> ELK-M1RB -> ELK-M1G -> ELK-M1XEP -> switch -> gateway).  Anyway, I'm just rambling now.
 
Yesterday I removed all of the green terminal blocks except for the one providing power.  I also left the data bus to the keypads plugged in.  Same result.  I have not checked the power supply coming into the board.  It is plugged in to a UPS/surge protector.  I only have it plugged into the surge side, though, so I can be notified when I have a power outage.  I will try to plug it directly into the wall.
 
I really do appreciate the help.  I installed the system 4 years ago and haven't had a single issue...until now.

 

[wuench]

Well if you have an elk-952 installed you might try removing that first....  Maybe it took the hit and is causing sporadic issues....

 

[Del91574]

950/952's failure method is to flash to ground, so there'd be no AC output to the panel from there or noise/no phone. Panel would still function on battery. PTC on transformer could be considered, but a complete reset would eliminate that (unplug/replug).
 
Sounds like a classic voltage differential between the telephone ground and AC ground through interconnected equipment. Probably related to the AC and GDO connection, either came through AC or GDO and voltage differential between that and telephone connection caused the issue.
 
That said, if you have the M1 connected to anything other than a POTS service (uverse in your case) the 952 does little to protect the M1 as the communications equipment will generally blow up before the 952 protects the M1 downstream.