Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Bad weather auto disconnect

Don't wait until lightning strikes
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Everybody tells you to disconnect electronic devices during a thunderstorm, but what to do if you are not at home? When I saw the disconnect system in the link the mental lightning flashed. Put a combined water and optical sensor on your roof. When the sensor gets wet and detects flashes all plugs on electronic equipment pop out of the wall.
kbecker, Jan 05 2004

Pop out plug http://www.kussmaul.com/ejector.htm
[kbecker, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

UK Lightning Detector http://www.meteorol...k/asp/lightning.asp
Output from a PC based lightning detector [oneoffdave, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

[link]






       Well, I'm sure our fellow bakers will find something to comment on, but there's sometimes I'd want this.   

       The only strike-storm I've ever suffered from took out the electric fence box and my phone answering machine - everything else was OK. There was a burn mark on the side of the house....The horses were completely bored by the whole thing, go figure....
normzone, Jan 05 2004
  

       + for the idea. But would there be a way to somehow wire this sensoring device to the main circuit breaker for the house? Would this make a difference? If the circuit breaker is off and appliences still pluged in, could lightning short them out?
v0rtexx, Jan 06 2004
  

       [vOrtexx] You could wire in a main breaker with a huge contact gap but a lot of lightning damage these days does not come through the mains. Those are nicely protected. If you live in the US in a rural area you probably have a transformer can at your house. It offers near 100% isolation against lightning strike on the incoming high voltage line.   

       It is the ornamental plastic lamp on your driveway that catches just a fraction of the lightning and routs it straight into your house.   

       Those are the rational arguments. The emotional argument is that I would just love to see those plugs fly.
kbecker, Jan 06 2004
  

       The best sensor to use would be a lightning detector and set it ot disconnect when the storm comes within a cretain radius of your home. Most pc based ones tell the differenc between cloud-cloud and cloud-ground strikes. An example can be found at the link.
oneoffdave, Jan 06 2004
  

       can you not get it to check weather.com for bad weather where you are ?
neilp, Jan 06 2004
  

       What about using a relay or something to cut the power?
Dickcheney6, Apr 15 2013
  

       So, it doesn't turn the car off in bad weather...
whlanteigne, Apr 17 2013
  
      
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