Placement of lightning rods [RE-wrenches]

[Drake Chamberlin - Electrical Energy]

<x-flowed>Hi Kurt,

Thanks for the clarification.  The issue is multiple ground paths through 
the system neutral (or negative) rather than from a lightning protection 
system such as rods or balls.

I am trying to understand as much as possible about lightning damage, as it 
is rampant in Colorado.  I've heard that it is the number one cause of back 
country fatalities in this state.  I seem to have had good luck in 
bulletproofing some existing systems that have experienced lightning 
damage, and don't know of any damage to my installations.  Although there 
seems to be a lot of ideas about what is best,  good grounding certainly 
seems to be the first line of defense.

Best regards,

Drake

At 06:59 AM 02/27/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>Drake Chamberlin - Electrical Energy wrote:
> >
> > Could you say more about the problem with multiple ground paths?   With
> > wind systems I've been advised to connect a ground rod to each leg of the
> > tower.
>
>Yes, that's not a multiple ground path, thats just good grounding of the
>tower.  I believe these individual tower leg groundings are suposed to
>all be bonded as well.  An example of multiple ground path on a PV
>system would be installing a ground rod at the (pole mounted) array and
>bonding the negative leg of the PV to ground at the array, and then
>installing a seperate ground rod on the home wiring.  Now, you have the
>possibility of a voltage potential developing (near-by lightning)
>between the two grounds and it is carried through the conductors (and
>charge controller, etc.) rather than through the ground wire.  Kurt
>Nelson
>
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For info contact list moderator by email:
 michael.welch at homepower.com

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