Lightning

I know from reading previous posts that you are not MORE likely to be hit by lightning with a pm, but I was wondering what happens to the pm if you ARE struck by lightning. Is it fried and needs to be replaced immediately? Just wondering, because a storm is forecast in the next few days in my area.


3 Comments

All bets are off

by Theknotguy - 2015-02-12 03:02:45

While, as you indicated, you are not more likely to be hit by lightening because you have a PM, if you are hit with lightening all bets are off. Being hit with several million volts of electricity does weird stuff and most electrical engineers say it's really hard to predict what will happen.

Grabbed a hot 110 volt wire the other night and got tickled by 110. No effect on my PM. Didn't go into maintenance mode, no thumps or bumps, nothing. Wear a sweatshirt that is warm, but get zapped with static electricity when I take it off in this cold weather. No effect on my PM even though it sure hurts the fingers.

So while it is possible to get hit by lightening and survive, if the current travels on the outside of the body, possibly no effect on the PM - similar to what happened to me with the 110 voltage and the static electricity.

On the other hand, if the voltage travels through the body, then all bets are off. Hard to tell where the voltage will go through the body and what it will do to the PM at that time. Question is how much voltage is needed to affect the PM? For that, I have no answer and I don't think the PM manufacturer will give you an answer either. Possibly because they haven't tested or are concerned you're a wacko and will start zapping other people with PM's to make them go into cardiac arrest or something.

Now if you get hit with a direct stroke of lightening at several million volts you really won't have to worry. All sorts of bad things will happen almost instantaneously. But you'll be dead so quickly you won't notice or care. Your family will be left to deal with the after effects including taxes and laundry.

Your question reminds me of a book I read on the early days of AC electricity. They were trying to determine how much voltage was in a lightening stroke. Steinmetz, one of the early pioneers had been told of a lightening strike at a cottage where the lightening stroke hit a mirror and it exploded into pieces. He spend an entire weekend re-assembling the mirror from the pieces.

From the pieces he was able to determine the strength of the lightening stroke and calculate the voltage. That's why you see those huge insulators on the power transmission lines. You'll also notice the power transmission lines have two wires above the main lines. They're there to divert lightening away from the main lines.

Was working on computer network installations a few years back. (Well, more than a few.) Company bought a second build next to the first. Their inside tech wanted to run network wires on telephone poles over to the second building. Told him couldn't do that as the poles are owned by electric company or telephone company and they take a dim view of other people using their poles. So he climbed up on the top of the first building after work one night and threw a cable between the buildings. Told him it was a bad idea but he didn't listen to us. (Or anyone else for that matter.) Everything was OK until the junk yard behind them brought in a large crane to remove scrap metal.

The Midwest is known for its thunder storms. Storm comes up, crane gets hit by lightening, wipes out their computer network. The stroke took the path of least resistance and went down the wire he had thrown between the two buildings. You could trace the path of the lightening stroke by walking through the building and finding fried computers. They were lucky they didn't have a major fire. Actually I ended up really liking that guy. I did computer repair and he kept me at work on that site for months.

Anyway, good philosophical question. Thanks for making me go through the mental exercise.

don't find out

by Tracey_E - 2015-02-12 09:02:17

Most don't survive getting hit by lightening, paced or not, so it's irrelevant what happens to the pm. Be smart, stay inside.

Thanks for the feedback

by kermiehiho - 2015-02-13 02:02:19

Wow, I think this is the most responses I've gotten on a post. Whimsical one too.

TraceyE, I wasn't planning to go out in lightning. The impending storm just brought about the question in my mind.

AngrySparrow1, I know that I'm not more likely to be hit by lightning with a pm - that's the first thing I said in my post.

ROBO Pop, I'm not particularly worrying about it - just curious.

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