Lightning Strike saga

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overbergerc

Member
Joined
May 3, 2012
Messages
20
Location
Kalamazoo, MI
I've been encouraged to post the details of a direct lighting strike to the 240V SP feed to my garage (and house) while my 7 month old SL Leaf was plugged in to my EVSE 16A adapter. This occurred on the morning of January 29th at 5:00 am during an extremely rare mid winter thunderstorm here in SW Michigan (Kalamazoo). The strike hit the 8 gauge 4 conductor UV insulated overhead cable (about a 100' overhead run to the garage, grounded and circuit protected w/a 40A breaker at the primary panel in the house and a secondary panel in the garage (40A breaker) right where the cable ran through a ceramic insulator on the corner of the houses before it dropped to a weatherhead/conduit feed into the house. It split the insulation on the entire length of cable run to the garage. At the point of contact, it pushed all 4 insulated conductors away from each other to a distance of about 8". It appeared as if someone put a football in the middle of the cable and formed the 4 individual conductors around the football and removed the football. I'll attach a foto at a later date. No melting or burning at this point in the circuit. The only tripped breakers were the primary service feed to the house panel and a 120V circuit (1 side) downstream from the 240V garage breaker. No wire damage downstream from the distribution panel in the garage and the EVSE seems to be OK (green light).

Not so with all the cabled Ethernet (cat 5e) in the house, switches, routers, NAS, UPS, 2 TVs, DVD, BT transceivers, Vonage VOIP router, all ATT Uverse VIdOIP boxes, VidOIP router, X-10 system, garage door openers (2), VDSL ATT line, Coax RG cable (100Mb internet service), and the VDSL/Video over IP in the house....AND the Leaf. Probably more that I haven't found yet. The "spark" jumped across from the power line to the adjacent cat 5e and ATT DSL cable to feed into the home networks.

Stand by for chapter 2. The Leaf adventure is by far the most interesting part of this story. Needless to say, Cole Nissan in Kalamazoo has only sold 6 or so Leafs. They have 1 trained Leaf technician (who has been great.....thank you John !) You won't believe the parts horror story I have to tell. Most of the folks at this dealership have been great...but not all.

I need to go start Sunday dinner for the family. I'm the chef at our house !!

Many thanks to Phil and Mark for their advice so far. We are lucky to have them on this forum.


Chuck O
 
Actually, the damage you reported more likely was from EMP than a direct arc...

overbergerc said:
Not so with all the cabled Ethernet (cat 5e) in the house, switches, routers, NAS, UPS, 2 TVs, DVD, BT transceivers, Vonage VOIP router, all ATT Uverse VIdOIP boxes, VidOIP router, X-10 system, garage door openers (2), VDSL ATT line, Coax RG cable (100Mb internet service), and the VDSL/Video over IP in the house....AND the Leaf. Probably more that I haven't found yet. The "spark" jumped across from the power line to the adjacent cat 5e and ATT DSL cable to feed into the home networks.
 
Could be, however the charred insulation at that point in the cable (8/4 and the charred entry point in the cat5e and Tcom cable adjacent to the exit point) might indicate an "aggressive" EMP event. I'd call it SEMP..for Sparky Electromagnetic Pulse ;-)

Chuck

TomT said:
Actually, the damage you reported more likely was from EMP than a direct arc...

overbergerc said:
Not so with all the cabled Ethernet (cat 5e) in the house, switches, routers, NAS, UPS, 2 TVs, DVD, BT transceivers, Vonage VOIP router, all ATT Uverse VIdOIP boxes, VidOIP router, X-10 system, garage door openers (2), VDSL ATT line, Coax RG cable (100Mb internet service), and the VDSL/Video over IP in the house....AND the Leaf. Probably more that I haven't found yet. The "spark" jumped across from the power line to the adjacent cat 5e and ATT DSL cable to feed into the home networks.
 
Wish I did. Now the car wants a "Battery Registration Upload" This a apparently an SD card that fits into a PCMCIA card adapter that does some magic to the VCM. The VCM and on-board charger have been replaced and the car will actually move..albeit only at 25MPH..so sad..All errors *had* cleared but 3 new ones have appeared, according to the tech. There are 2 separate cooling pump errors now as well as the "battery registration" error. I'm hoping this battery error is a theft prevention program that is preventing the car from moving too fast as not to allow the "thief" to get too far in his leaf with a stolen battery pack..huh...:^)

They have no clue what this SD card does, but they ordered one. I did get to see the PCMCIA <> SD card adapter..says Nissan in the label! I'm not confident.

They told me the VCM would have a 2 month delay in delivery as it is matched to the VIN. I managed to find one on-line at an LA Nissan dealer that had ordered one by mistake. Tracked this down through 3 Chicago area dealers and word of mouth. The parts manager in Kalamazoo told Nissan Leaf corporate customer service that I must have found a part from "UCLA" since I work at a university here in Kalamazoo (Western Michigan University College of Engineering and Applied Sciences). Apparently he felt since he could not find one via the Nissan Part Finder Network, that a lowly customer could not possibly have found one on his own and *assumed* I had found a black market or research part through my university contacts. Talk about a science fiction story!

They finally did a D2D parts transfer to get the part from...I think it's Dowler Nissan in LA, to Cole Nissan in Kalamazoo. Nissan engineering, through Leaf customer service, express shipped the OB charger to Cole (without prompting) Wednesday morning ahead of time. I really appreciated that.

BTW, I'm paying for all this service myself. No warranty for "acts of nature". I had to give Cole a CC number. They refused to even order parts without insurance coverage UP-FRONT ! My insurance comprehensive coverage is probably going to cover it. The VCM alone was 1500.00.

Gotta love it !! I have an Altima rental. It cost me 50.00 to fill it up with gas !!!! Yikes

19 days and counting !!!

Chuck O
 
Wow.. reminds me of a lightening strike I had a few years back. We had a buried ethernet cable going to a workshop in the back. Lightening hit a tree, but for some reason that ethernet cable became highly charged and fried just about every ethernet device in the house. the ethernet cables were melted into the jacks in the walls and the jacks in the hub. I had to cut the wires off the front of the hub and re-crimp them. Every PC and device in the house that uses ethernet was dead.

After that, I replaced the outdoor ethernet cable with fiber optic.

Sorry to hear about your Leaf too.. I've been unplugging the Leaf and Volt during thunderstorms.
 
adric22 said:
Sorry to hear about your Leaf too.. I've been unplugging the Leaf and Volt during thunderstorms.

I have to admit I've been doing the same thing for awhile now (although I've been lucky enough to not have ANY lightning strike cause damage at my house).
 
Looks like the battery registration card/code/procedure does indeed restrict the torque output of the traction motor if it's not registered. I'm hoping the SD card arrives tomorrow. Looks like the 2 coolant pumps are connected to the VCM buss AND GROUNDED, which is why they were "taken" by the lightning god. All devices in my house that were properly grounded AND connected to my fairly extensive home networks (data and video) were smoked..literally.

3200.00 plus labor so far. Pumps will probably be another 800 to 1K..plus more labor.

Fun!
 
Good luck overbergerc, and appreciate the heads up on this risk.
Hard to see how the EVSE survived this lightning strike?
LEAF was charging, lots of stuff on the LEAF fried, but the EVSE survived?
Since the strike was to the overhead feed to the garage, even a utility supplied surge arrestor probably wouldn't have done much good.
Now I'll be watching the weather and trying to not be charging during thunderstorms!!!!
Prior to that the only storm damage I came close on was the freak wind storm that blew through this summer catching me and LEAF in the garden, with absolutely no warning.
 
An event like this will make one want to install proper lightning rods designed to safely dissipate direct lightning hits...

At least the only thing lost here is a bit of time and money!
 
overbergerc said:
Many thanks to Phil and Mark for their advice so far. We are lucky to have them on this forum.
Thanks for posting this Chuck! The upgraded EVSE survived because the lightning hit is a common mode disturbance, and the EVSE has MOV's (Metal Oxide Varistors) designed to shunt this to ground.

Sadly, a direct strike of this magnitude is almost impossible to protect against. The good thing is that they are relatively rare.

Chuck, Keep us posted! I'd love to see pictures also!

-Phil
 
Yeah !!

Car is back. 6K later. Modulator (VCM) ~1450.00, OB Charger, 1750.00, both coolant pumps, 600.00 each (attached to the DC buss and grounded.). Labor, 1200.00 and a case of Bell's Beer. EVSE is charging at 240V, no problem. I missed my car ! Spent 120.00 in fuel on the rental which Nissan will reimburse.

I'll send fotos of the "lightning art" this weekend. Thanks for all the kind words !!


Chuck O


overbergerc said:
Herm said:
The lighting strike probably stressed lots of items in the house and car that have not failed yet


Probably, but not too much "didin't fail" Pretty much took out everything but the kitchen appliances.



Chuck
 
Well,
I have the old parts. I'm told the charger has an internal fuse. The VCM and pumps are probably not worth trying to fix, but the charger might be. Anyone (Phil)? have any schematics or functional diagrams of this gear?

Chuck



overbergerc said:
Yea!

Car is back. 6K later. Modulator (VCM) ~1450.00, OB Charger, 1750.00, both coolant pumps, 600.00 each (attached to the DC buss and grounded.). Labor, 1200.00 and a case of Bell's Beer. EVSE is charging at 240V, no problem. I missed my car ! Spent 120.00 in fuel on the rental which Nissan will reimburse.

I'll send fotos of the "lightning art" this weekend. Thanks for all the kind words !!


Chuck O


overbergerc said:
Herm said:
The lighting strike probably stressed lots of items in the house and car that have not failed yet


Probably, but not too much "didin't fail" Pretty much took out everything but the kitchen appliances.



Chuck
 
adric22 said:
After that, I replaced the outdoor ethernet cable with fiber optic.

Smart move! This is why I try to do everything I can across fiber now. I just built a guest house on my property for my parents to move here, and everything connected to the house is fiber, except the electric feed of course. ;) Cable TV, phone, and 100 Mbs ethernet/internet connection are all singlemode fiber underground. In my experience, long runs of copper are like a magnet for lightning damage. A strike anywhere nearby can induce enough voltage into the lines to fry the electronics on both ends.
 
overbergerc said:
Well,
I have the old parts. I'm told the charger has an internal fuse. The VCM and pumps are probably not worth trying to fix, but the charger might be. Anyone (Phil)? have any schematics or functional diagrams of this gear?

Chuck
No schematics, but I can bet with confidence it's not as simple as a fuse. At a minimum, the CAN transceivers are probably toast.

I'd love to do a failure mode analysis if you are willing to ship me the parts. I'll even provide a shipping label. I'll post the results here so that everyone can benefit.

-Phil
 
I'll be happy to. If you don't mind paying the UPS, that would be great. I'm still waiting for the check from the insurance company. The out of pocket on the care is about 4k so far !! I'll PM you my vitals !

Chuck

Ingineer said:
overbergerc said:
Well,
I have the old parts. I'm told the charger has an internal fuse. The VCM and pumps are probably not worth trying to fix, but the charger might be. Anyone (Phil)? have any schematics or functional diagrams of this gear?

Chuck
No schematics, but I can bet with confidence it's not as simple as a fuse. At a minimum, the CAN transceivers are probably toast.

I'd love to do a failure mode analysis if you are willing to ship me the parts. I'll even provide a shipping label. I'll post the results here so that everyone can benefit.

-Phil
 
^^^
That's awesome to see Phil wants to dig in.

How much will you owe out of pocket after insurance? It's too bad it sounds like Nissan didn't want to help cover it or do a failure analysis on the parts. :(
 
Nothing,
as long as the insurance company comes through..and I suspect they will. I had to prepay for the parts at the dealership as the warranty won't cover lightning damage. The insurance company seemed to think they could find parts after market for less than dealer MSRP..for a 2012 electric car! We shall see what comes of it.

cwerdna said:
^^^
That's awesome to see Phil wants to dig in.

How much will you owe out of pocket after insurance? It's too bad it sounds like Nissan didn't want to help cover it or do a failure analysis on the parts. :(
 
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