Article View: sci.electronics
Article #5287Re: St Elmo's Fire (was Re: Lightning)
From: Kevin William Ryan
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 1990 16:03
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 1990 16:03
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Heard a nasty lightning story some time back, thought folks might
find it interesting.
A friend of mine had a bunch of Hewlett Packard (sp?) equipment set
up. The equipment was connected by a 'daisy chain' arrangement, which
made a loop connecting the various modules. Due to space requirements
they had the equipment set up on a table around a pillar, so that the
daisy chain circled the pillar itself.
What they didn't know was that the ground wire for a lightning rod
ran down inside the pillar.
There was, of course, a storm. When the lightning struck the rod the
equipment all but exploded. Smoke, cracked boards, warped containers,
melted wires, fused components, the works. Imagine the induced voltage
in a circular conductor roughly four feet in diameter around a conductor
carrying up to 30,000 amps...
Needless to say the equipment was a _total_ loss.
kwr
Internet: kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu
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<1990Jul18.111525.5749@ioe.lon.ac.uk> <2436@speedy.mcnc.org> <1990Jul19.210925.165@mlb.semi.harris.com> <1047@tsdiag.ccur.com>, <3984@healey>Show Full Headers
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!kr0u+ From: kr0u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kevin William Ryan) Newsgroups: sci.electronics,sci.physics Subject: Re: St Elmo's Fire (was Re: Lightning) Message-ID: <YaflFa600Uzx01MVxS@andrew.cmu.edu> Date: 26 Jul 90 16:03:50 GMT References: <1990Jul18.111525.5749@ioe.lon.ac.uk> <2436@speedy.mcnc.org> <1990Jul19.210925.165@mlb.semi.harris.com> <1047@tsdiag.ccur.com>, <3984@healey> Organization: Biology, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 24 In-Reply-To: <3984@healey>