Lightning Arrestors? [RE-wrenches]

[Bob Ellison]

I service a 20 K Jacobs that I inherited that has a hell of a time
with lightning. It has the factory suppressors on the alternator and
LA's on the inverter and still gets hit every couple years. The tower
and inverter are well grounded but I don't think there is a bond
between the tower and the inverter to tie it all together. I also
think it is coming in from the grid side but the factory is going to
examine the boards to see if they can find a clue. There is a HUGE
transformer on the other side of the wall (located outside) that drops
the 3 ph grid power for the building from whatever it comes in off the
grid at (5500 volts?) . I think it is part of the problem as the main
AC breaker is always tripped when this happens.
This system uses a buck boost transformer to connect the single phase
turbine output to 3 ph for the breaker box. The first time it happened
it turned the transformer to a hunk of molten, dripping tar.

Lightning is always "fun".

Best,
Bob


On 10/4/07, Darryl Thayer <daryl_solar at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all
> My latest Outback has an Outback lightning arrestor,
> it is required by UL I understand since May,  It is
> not a spark gap but a Varistor type, and it has
> indicator lights that tell status of the protection.
> This unit protects both the AC and The DC side (the
> current carring conductors on both AC and DC)  With
> this lightning protection, the battery can float and
> the GFDI can function normally.
> Daryl
>
> --- August Goers <august at luminalt.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > All -
> >
> > One of Darryl Thayer's recent posts brought up a
> > question for me regarding
> > lightning arrestors.
> >
> > Does anyone have field experience with lightning
> > arrestors actually working
> > and saving any part of a system? How many of you
> > folks out there have seen
> > what lightning actually does to a system with or
> > without a lightning
> > arrestor?
> >
> > I've always been under the impression that the only
> > way to properly
> > lightning protect a system is to setup a heavy duty
> > grounding electrode
> > system consisting of a supplementary ground
> > electrode located close to the
> > PV array.
> >
> > -August
> >
> > Luminalt
> >
> >
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