how to avoid router being hit and damaged by lightning?

Heya guys,

yesterday there was a big rain and lightning, it seems that the lightning has made my parent's wireless router damaged, so now they don't have any internet connection. Well, it's very very important to me to communicate often with them through facebook, because it's for free

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, international calling is very expensive. They are going to get a new router, but how do they avoid this next time? We can't afford to buy new routers everytime lightning strikes :shrug: I looked up about it in google, using the keywords like in the thread title, but all I got is "how to avoid getting struck by lightning"! Thanks in advance.

 

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Pull the plug out of the wall when there is lightening.

 

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Omg, that makes sense!

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Thanks for the quick and helpful reply, Ellie!!

 

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oh...thats ok.

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Run all the lines (including the phone line) through a surge protector. If you buy the good quality ones here they garentiee the equipment plugged into them

 

UPS usually stands for Uninterruptible Power Supply, and refers to a device that stores electricity in a battery for temporary backup if the "wall" power should fluctuate or black out for a short period of time. Typically, computers or servers are connected to these UPS devices to prevent them from shutting off during electrical storms and other power fluctuations/outages.

As examples....

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...vvnXBQ&usg=AFQjCNH8nX-05_Vfq-fQud8f0HYjyGtQ_w

 

Thanks!

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Not sure if my parent can find a surge protector or an UPS in the computer shop, but I'd tell them to look for them and tell them they need it to protect their router from lightning and for power supply back up. Maybe in my country they have special names for that. Thx again.

 

there are 2 ways lightning can damage your system.
1. through your power lines.
most of this type of damage will be prevented by a lightning arrestor installed at the drop at your house. this device will shunt most of the surge to ground. plugging your router into a surge protector will help prevent damage from any surges that sneak through.

2. phone lines. contact your provider for info in this area because most phone companies forbid connecting any device to their lines unless its approved.

 

Just unplug all sensitive electronic devices (like computer, tv, phone, modem, radio) when a storm is coming on or when leaving the house for longer periods.
Unplug 1. from the power supply, 2. from the phone line, 3. from the antenna/cable.

 

Works with televisions too (if using the old Analogue Antennas)

Another method is actually to EARTH the connections to your household, for instance a phoneline should have an earth at the pole. (It's usually just a cable pinned down the pole to earth connected to the phoneline shielding at the top.)

The idea is that in an electrical strike, the electricity will find the shortest route to the earth. In the instance of Kira's parents that would be through their router, if down to an electrical surge.

One thing I noticed about a cheap router I had during a thunderstorm was that it would lose connection, it wasn't due to being struck by lightening but down to the EM discharge that lightening causes (Internally it didn't have enough shielding against Electromagnetic radiation), it's possible that if the router isn't a melted plastic puddle that it might of just had it's firmware knocked out by an EM discharge.