you can buy surge protectors or UPS that have replaceable surge protection components (similar to changing a fuse); theses will be higher priced. some devices will have an indicator if the surge protection is still good in the device.
if you are a home owner installing a whole house surge protector is the best first protection.
The better surge protectors have an indicator light which tell you that the surge-absorbing components are still good.
You are apparently assuming a myth that other have also posted. No surge protector - not one - does surge protection. Effective protection from direct lightning strikes is only provided by earth ground. Either a protector makes a short (ie ‘less than 10 foot’) connection to earth. Or it does not even claim to protect from any typically destructive surge. It simply calls itself a surge protector. Then hopes many will assume that means surge protection.
What is a direct lightning strike to all household appliances? A direct lightning strike to utility wires down the street - overhead or underground wires. Other similar surges are also created by external events including utility switching and stray cars. In every case, damage means a homeowner failed to properly earth. Or foolishly spend tens or 100 times more money on ineffective power strips. Those power strips can sometimes make electronics damage easier.
But again, most ignore all numbers. Most only assume protector and protection are the same words. Advertising creates these myths.
How does a silly protector’s “hundreds of joules” absorb destructive surges that are “hundreds of thousands of joules”? It doesn’t. A hundreds joule surge - too tiny to overwhelm protection already inside appliances - easily destroys the scam protector. A failure light gets the most naive among us to assume rather than first learn. To speculate, “My protector sacrificed itself to save my computer.” The convert that wild speculation into fact.
The computer saved itself. A protector was so grossly undersized as to fail. Any protector that fails even during a direct lighting strike is a scam. The light can only report one type of failure - “protector was grossly undersized and ineffective” failure. These grossly undersized protectors can also cost tens or 100 times more money per protected appliance.
Only effective solution is also described by johnpost. But he forgot to mention the most important ‘system’ component. Only thing that makes any protector effective. Single point earth ground. Hundreds of thousands of joules must dissipate somewhere. Anyone who does not discuss energy dissipation is probably promoting a protector scam.
Ham radio operators do not disconnect. They earth. As described in multiple articles in QST magazine entitled “Lightning Protection for the Amateur Radio Station”. Protectors either connect short (ie ‘less than 10 feet’) to single point earth ground. Or may even make damage easier. Yes, some protectors can even create worse problems. A reality not found when conclusions are based only in wild speculation and feelings.
Lightning damage in West London? That often means a direct lightning strike up the street was a direct strike to buried wires and therefore a direct strike to all household appliances. All suffered the incoming path. Only a few had an outgoing path. Only those few appliances were damaged. Surges are electricity. Both an incoming and outgoing surge path must exists.
Another obviously bogus myth is a UPS protection. Read its spec numbers. A UPS claims even less protection that power strips. But again, wild speculation rather than engineering reality is the source of UPS protection … that even its manufacturer does not claim. Show me the numbers!
Defined is a failure often found in one of many parts of the power system. Often traceable to a manufacturing defect. Sometimes created by a power strip protector on some other nearby appliance. PSU is only one ‘system’ part. Entire ‘system’ could have been solved in the next post. Buy or borrow a £7 Malpin tool even used by 13 year old science students.
Unfortunately, many irrelevant posts created too much fear and confusion. Discussed too many things that were not even relevant.
Only the few and better shops will say with numbers and hard facts what part failed. If the failure was due to lightning, then the better shop will also say what the incoming and outgoing lightning current path was.
Curious - there was a lightning storm last night and my computer briefly flickered to dim, then went back to normal brightness again. Wonder if that means the electricity of the lightning was absorbed by the computer’s power cord/adapter, or the computer itself? (both are still functioning well at the moment, with no noticeable issues)
The flickering to dim was the mains power dropping to low levels. Sounds odd, but when the lights flicker it is because a DC surge has occurred in the power distribution and this causes the cores of all the connected transformers to saturate. A saturated transformer ceases working for as long as the core is saturated - and by working - we mean delivering mains power. So strangely, although we associate lightning strikes with lots of power, so long as they don’t actually score a direct hit on you or the power feed into your house, they often result in a short term loss of power delivery.
As I note I wrote years ago above, a direct lightning strike takes no prisoners. They are capable of melting or even vaporising stuff in their way. Nothing you have can safely adsorb the power delivered. Most things just turn into a lump melted junk. A distant strike may lead to a simple high voltage spike on the mains, that may or may not kill your equipment. Most equipment will survive a lot of punishment, a strike close enough to cause damage tends to be pretty obvious and spectacular.
Why would a computer absorb a surge that was near zero volts? It doesn’t. Because a surge is a voltage well above AC line voltage. Described is a lower voltage; not a higher one.
More numbers. How many joules does that protector claim to absorb? Hundreds? Thousand? Computers and other electronics convert that near zero transient to rock stable, low DC voltages to safety power semiconductors. If that surge was destructive, then a computer does not even boot. Surges do damage - or do nothing.
Routine is protection from all direct lightning strikes when something completely different (also called a protector) makes that low impedance (ie less than 10 foot) connection to earth ground electrodes. Only those educated by myths never learn why direct lightning strikes cause no damage all over the world - where a human learns well proven science.
Dimming is not a surge. Dimming is a low voltage - probably created, when lightning (less energy) connected AC power (greater energy) temporarily to earth. That is not a surge. That is a brownout or a sag. Brownouts and sags do not harm electronics.
As a slight aside 13 amp fuse on a 240 volt system would be recommended for something using 3kW. (Even then the fuse could conceivably handle 20 amps of current consistently)
A laptop does not require anything like a 13 amp fuse. The cables could melt before the fuse blew in case of over current. An electrician would be able to recommend the correct fuse rating for your appliances.
I saw the flash out the back of my computer (many years ago) during a thunderstorm when we lived in a rural village in NZ. Fortunately, it was the modem that died, and the rest of the PC was fine.
Another time, I had to collect a PC that had died during a lightning strike - I popped the case, and could see the exploded chips on the motherboard (north and southbridge). The CPU was knackered, too, but the memory was fine, so I got an upgrade out of that while the customer claimed on his insurance. The disk was recovered so the customer did not lose any data.
So what was an incoming and outgoing path. That (reasons why) are a first reason we fix things. Since that best defines an immediate solution. And also averts future damage.
Take that damaged modem as a classic example. Many, who assume the phone line was an incoming path, make major mistakes. First mistake, to make a conclusion only from observation. Second is to ignore effective protection that is routinely installed on phone lines. Third is to ignore why AC electric is a so common incoming surge path. Fourth is to forget that both an incoming and outgoing electrical path must exist as the exact same time. Otherwise no surge damage exists.
The most common source of modem damage is AC mains. If using a plug-in protector, then that incoming path is direct to a motherboard (compromising / bypassing best protection). Through motherboard to modem. Then out to earth via that phone line.
Most commonly destroyed modem part is one PNP transistor that drives an off hook relay. Since a breakdown voltage from relay coil to relay contact is typically only a few hundred volts, then damaged is a PNP transistor that drives that relay.
We repaired dozen of these. All worked perfectly fine for many more years.
Notice where damage is - on an outgoing path. Also note many other parts not damaged - such as all semiconductors on a motherboard. Because that surge was incoming to all - but had no outgoing path.
Return to damaged north and south bridges. What was the incoming and outgoing path? Was a motherboard mistakenly mounted with many conductive standoffs? Or properly mounted with only one conductive standoff and all others non-conductive nylon? These facts might explain that damage.
Solutions start by first learning why damage happened; what was an incoming and outgoing path. Physically damaged parts (that is quite rare) makes analysis easiest. The a human mistake that made damage possible is also corrected.