Omni Lightning Strike

[jharrell]

Had lightning strike nearby outside and looks like it took out my OmniPro and my RC2000 OmniStat.

When it happend, power flickered, kicked off all my UPS's for my computers and the Omni keypad immediately started beeping like trouble, I though oh one of my sensors got hit. Went to the keypad to view trouble and keypad is sitting at "NO CONTROLLER DATA". Tried to access on my iPhone, nothing, but the internet is still up.

Opened up can and the power LED is on but status led is not blinking. Tried power cycle and nothing. Noticed the OmniStat would not light up either, A/C was running, but I think the relay was just stuck on.

Luckly my old RC80 tstat which I had hooked up in the garage as a temp sensor, and was on the same comm and power bus was still functional. I switched it out to get the A/C running again (Although only one stage cooling and no heat).

Still accessing damage, thought a HAI UPB relay switch that controlled outside lights was a gonner too, but this morning it started working again, even a circuit power cycle did nothing for it yesterday.

Physically inspecting the Omni board looks like a resistor next to the large coil in the power supply section has a leg unsoldiered, doesn't look burnt, just as though someone cleanly unsoldier the leg from the board.

The Omnistat looks like it has a choke labeled "pf 417" that has a somewhat melted plastic case but hard to tell if that just they way its made.

Nothing else seems damaged in the house(4 computers, tvs, etc.) neighbor had phones and tv get taken out. I am thinking inductance on the LV lines and not coming in through the power, as I have good ground and a spark gap on the meter, and only the Omni was affected, but who knows.

BTW I have FIOS for phone internet and tv, and since it's glass there no way it came in that way, only conductor coming into house from the outside is power.

Just figured I would share what lightning could do, still got to figure out if my homeowners policy will cover anything, and see if anyone has had similar experience with lightning and the Omni.

 

[Frunple]

I just got hit recently also. There is another thread about it but I can tell you my Omni did the same thing as yours. I had to find the bad device and disconnect it to clear the "no controller data". No physical damage to the Omni itself though. None visible any way. Lost an access card reader, that was the culprit.
BTW, anyone know if there are any other access readers that work with the Omni Pro II??

 

[jharrell]

Yeah I need to start disconnecting to see if it comes back to life.

Here are some photos of the resistor on the OPII and the choke on the RC2000.

Anyone know if it's possible the resistor was manufacturing defect that didn't cause any problems? I know it's unlikely but it looks too clean for lightning.

The choke melted looking stuff might also just be epoxy, but I also doubt it.

 

[Del91574]

Just to give you a heads up:
Your FIOS ONT will still have a ground connection to it, and from your ONT, I'm sure it's transitioned into copper. I doubt they'd install without an EG, especially when it's called for.

I've seen many panels and security items blown up due to lightning no matter how well protected. Even had the surges for the panels and between building connections catch on fire.

 

[jharrell]

Just to give you a heads up:
Your FIOS ONT will still have a ground connection to it, and from your ONT, I'm sure it's transitioned into copper. I doubt they'd install without an EG, especially when it's called for.

I've seen many panels and security items blown up due to lightning no matter how well protected. Even had the surges for the panels and between building connections catch on fire.

Yes my ONT is powered and has a ground wire which goes to a adapter to make it a normal 3 prong plug with the whole thing in my garage, again though the only conductors coming in the house are the mains (which power the ONT). I have an earth ground rod right below the meter.

When I had FIOS installed I had them remove the old aerial copper telephone and cable tv coax lines coming to the house.

I really like FIOS because it's an inert and passive network, just glass between me and the local switch, and all buried.

Of course lightning can come down the mains, but that the only path from the outside, and it has a spark gap to help, but no other paths.

Still didn't save me, but looks like the neighbor is the one who got hit directly, and the coax coming down the side of their house is scorched, all their tv's and phones are gone.

 

[video321]

Sorry to hear about your trouble. Lightning issues do indeed suck! I too was a victim recently during a very bad storm. It took out my onboard NIC in my office PC and the analog audio portion of my Envy24 sound card in my HTPC. Well, that's what I know of to this point. I came home right after the storm and the first thing I came across was the onboard NIC in my office PC and my heart started racing.....oh no!!! I was thinking I hope my network didn't carry that surge and I picked up my laptop and started connecting to everything on the network....Elk M1, CCTV DVR, media players, etc. Luckily, all checked out o.k. I already have a whole-house surge protector on the panel with a good ground. I also have secondary protection on my sensitive electronics. Still that happened

 

[Del91574]

Usually network devices are self-sacrificing in a lightning/extreme surge situation and generally limit the damage to themselves or in the case of a computer that took a hit directly, the network switch.

 

[jharrell]

Wow looks like just pushing that 10 ohm resistor down so it's leg makes contact brings the Omni back to life. Hard to believe a lightning surge can cleanly desoldier a component without damaging sensitive semiconductors around it or even leaving a scorch mark.

I am going to try and re soldier the leg and see how it goes.

The OmniStat seems beyond my ability to repair, and that upb relay switch stopped functioning again, so those two are probably going to have to be replaced.

 

[Spanky]

Lightning has several paths to enter a control:
1. Zone Loops
2: Telephone Line
3: Keypad data bus
4: AC power line
5: Siren / speaker line
6: Serial bus or Ethernet line

Lightning is searching for a path to earth ground. The biggest problem is when lightning runs in on one of these lines and can find a path out another line, it takes electronics out in between the paths.

Example: Lighting runs in on the telephone line and can find a path out the AC transformer. A worse case is when you have a telephone protector on the telephone line to ground and lightning runs in on an unprotected AC transformer which now can find a path to earth ground on the telephone line protector. You have to protect all the potential input lines for total protection.

A single input path like on a totally wireless control's AC transformer does not have a secondary path to earth ground and is less likely to be blown out from lightning.

 

[cornutt]

Hmm... on that resistor, I can't tell if the leg melted or if it just pulled loose from the solder joint. When you go to re-solder it, you may find that there was some flashover on the solder side of the board and that it melted the solder there. Or it may have been a cold joint to begin with, and over time mechanical vibration worked it loose.

If you ever open the box and find that the status light on the board is not flashing, that's not a good sign. It means that the system software is not running.

DELInstallations: in my case (I was the one that posted that other thread), what happened to me was that a device that was being powered from the aux 12V shorted, and the self-resetting fuse on the board tripped. I didn't know this before, but apparently that self-resetting fuse protects not only the aux 12V and the switched 12V, but also the console bus 12V. So what happened to me was not a "NO CONTROLLER DATA" -- my console went completely dead.

 

[jharrell]

Hmm... on that resistor, I can't tell if the leg melted or if it just pulled loose from the solder joint. When you go to re-solder it, you may find that there was some flashover on the solder side of the board and that it melted the solder there. Or it may have been a cold joint to begin with, and over time mechanical vibration worked it loose.

It looks more like mechanical vibration worked it loose, but again the controller was running right up till the lightning strike, and the instance the flash and boom happened the keypad started beeping with the dreaded no controller data message. Perhaps it was a really bad joint barely connected and just a small surge caused it to become a fuse a break loose maybe saving the rest of the system.

This morning I powered it up and the beeping started, still dead, I then pressed the resistor down to the joint because, hey why not, and as soon as it contacted, status light started blinking and the keypad came alive with "System Time not set" and reporting violated zones properly. It's mechanically connected now, just by bending it back down it's making contact on it's own and the panel is functional, although I turned it back off to soldier it later anyway.

 

[jharrell]

I resoldered the resistor and the panel is functioning again!

I also believe to have found where the surge came from. After powering on the panel I noticed UPB control wasn't working. I found the UPB interface in the garage non functional, took the one off my rain8 and plugged it in, this one lit up but control still non-functional. Decided to try reconfiguring serial port 3 to be UPB control and move it over, with that UPB control started working again.

Took apart the dead UPB interface to find this:





So I am going to guess the lightning strike came down the mains probably mitgated some by the spark gap at the meter,hit the UPB interface which I have on a outlet right at the panel for best signal propogation, destroyed it, went up the cat 5 serial line took out serial port one, made its way to the thermostat serial bus on the Omni and took out my RC2000.

I think this raises some questions and some warnings for those using UPB with an Omni about surge suppression on the UPB inteface. When I first installed the panel I put the UPB interface on a surge suppressed outlet, I was not able to get a clean signal out, so I moved it to a raw outlet near my panel next to the UPB phase coupler. This gave me a great signal, and from what I can tell it is not recommended to put a UPB or X10 interface on a surge suppressor because of these issues. I am going to assume that without a ground prong the UPB interface itself has no built in surge protection, does the Omni have any on it's serial ports because from my understanding it does on it's zones and power input? If not, UPB is essentially a backdoor for over-voltage into the Omni.

I think I am going to start looking at some good whole house suppressors, what I have isn't good enough.

 

[cornutt]

Wow, that thar blowed up real good. :nutz: How long is the Cat5 run from your controller to your PIM? If the run is long enough, it's possible that the lightning induced the overvoltage directly onto the Cat5. I think that's what happened to my doorbell interface -- it induced the voltage onto the wiring that goes from the button to the panel. It terminated directly into the high-impedance input of the 7555 timer IC, which it blew up. I've added a capacitor between the "hot" side of the doorbell button circuit and ground. We'll see how that does.

 

[jharrell]

How long is the Cat5 run from your controller to your PIM?

The run is about 30ft but its across the basement/garage ceiling, the Omni is above the the run, and I have a lot more cat 5 up in the attic, I would think that would get induced first, and that UPB interface was right there where the mains come in, but who knows.

Starting to wish all data comm was done over fiber, they can even do lower power over fiber using photocells, which would be perfect for powering security sensors. I want everything optically isolated.