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Posted By: mavaks Cabinet lightning surge - grounding? - 05/11/11 04:44 PM
We took a lightning hit a couple of weeks ago and lost access to both BWDKU cards in cabinet three. After moving the cards to empty slots in cabinet 1 and 2, we were able to test all of the circuits, re-terminate and reprogram the cards to get those stations back online.

The interesting part is that the power supply of cabinet 3 tested fine, and the cabinet has the same issues with a new power supply. The remaining card in cabinet 3, a 8-port RSTU, has continued working throughout.

We suspect that the primary input voltage used by the digital cards got fried, but the analog card uses a different voltage, so it has kept it running. The dealer has been in to check it, and has recommended replacing the entire cabinet.

Needless to say, the last two weeks have been spent checking and installing proper grounding and bonding wires, verifying primary and secondary protection on all inter-building wiring, etc. We're finding a lot of things that were either overlooked or done poorly by the previous dealer or installers.

One thing we're not sure about is the grounding and bonding of the cabinets. The power supplies in all 3 cabinets are bonded together, and there are bonds from each power supply to the backplane board, but there's no ground wire leaving the cabinet back to the bus bar on the MDF. The 45RMU 19" rack it sits in is also not grounded or bonded. There is a vacant ground screw on the top (base) power supply. My thinking is to run a #8 ground from that screw back to the bus bar to complete the path to ground.
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