Over Voltage Protection for Lightning

And that, my friend, is how you get a 'Good Answer' vote!

Nicely done.

Thankyou for the quick response! But the problems I see here are: The university does not want to invest a lot of money on this station anymore (enough with the pyranometers, solar tracker, pyrheliometer, data acquisition system), and two, a Diplom student needs to start gathering data no later than the 20th of June. Thanks for the idea! it is true, with optic fiber I would not have to worry about this at all!

Anyone knows another solution perhaps?

Thanks to all!

it is only 16 usd each, you can ofoard it yourself without the university,

by the way, which university is this?

Hello again!

I just saw the link, that is perfect I think.

Its a University in Germany, the Carl Von Ossietzky.

Thanks once again!

Bonne chance alors!! (Good luck)

If the installation suffers a direct strike from lightning, then there might not be enough left of it to worry about.

The best method of lightning protection is to stick an earthed structure up near to, and a lot higher than, the item that wants protection. Any discharge may well go there preferentially. Has the nearby boiler house chimney got a lightning spike or is it made of metal, for example?

Hello,

The problem that worries me is that the reference voltage after the ligthning strike would be very high, and between the computer and tracker would be a great potential difference causing the problem. The building is properly protected against lightning, so I dont worry about having this hitting the station (or any component) directly.

Thanks for the response!

Germany you say?

you could not be anywhere better for information on lightning protection.

go no farther than www.dehn.de to find the perfect lightning protection for your data cables, particularly since you are knowledgable enough to understand that your tracker is incorporated into the lightning protection system of the building.

the Dehn catalogue for communication equipment (the yellow catalogue) is organized by application.

if you speak to their application engineers, tell them i sent you!

Enjoy your study!

Bonjour vas bien:

Have you given any thought of employing a wireless transmitter and receiver to convey your data stream? I have one on my rooftop to provide real-time data from my weather station and it works great no matter what the weather is! The wireless system is fairly inexpensive and can transmit data well over 300 feet between the transmitter and the base receiver....

Just adding my 2 cents in....

Have wonderful sunny day!

That does sound interesting! do you have a link where I can read about it? and a place I can buy it? manufactrurers? Thanks!

I'm not quite sure where to shear you in regards to wireless transmitters. My remote weather station came equipped with the wireless gizmos already included.

I'm sure if you run a Google Search for Wireless transmitters you'll probably receive Godzillions of hits!

I've found (shameless commercial plug, IF I worked for Globalspec, which I do not) that the Globalspec search engine for companies returns very direct, and tremendously useful responses, directly from the GlobalSpec affiliations list. Try entering your search via the "Company by Name" option of the search box at the top of this page http://www.globalspec.com

Give it a try.

I used to repair telecommunications and industrial equipment and some of it was protected with gas discharge tubes and voltage dependent devices etc etc. and on the whole lightning is just to powerful and the voltages just to high to be sure of protection , but saying that my friends house just got stuck by lightning and all the computer equipment survived and he said a ball of plasma came out of the wall.

The only thing that was damaged was a cell phone charger or something like that.

Gas discharge was fitted to most antenna equipment and your situation is a bit like that.