A constant debate - where do you stand?

[Melos Antropon]

I would be interested in anyone's opinion on this question, but most especially any organ tech, like John. The question, which is debated constantly, is: In the event of a severe thunderstorm, is it better to unplug your organ, or leave it plugged into your surge protector device (assuming it is a good one, not a $7.95 hardware store type). The field, it seems to me, is always split about 50/50 on this question. Your ideas?

Tony

[ahlborn]

It is always best to unplug organ from the wall outlet. Certain currents can rise from the ground-earth line and enter on organ, causing damage. The surge protector can not avoid this.
It must be said that if the lightning is near to organ, even disconnecting the plug is not useful. Electromagnetic radiation is so powerful that it can damage the chip.

[KC9UDX]

If it has tubes, it's only really going to be affected by a direct strike. In that event, the organ is the least of your worries.

If your organ has a genuine power switch, turning it off is close enough to unplugging it for all but the worst case. If it has a microprocessor, it's just as susceptible to trouble as most of the other electronics you have.

On Christ the Solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.

[jbird604]

Better safe than sorry, of course, so with your new 370, don't take any chances. No surge protector is perfect, not even the ones with "$100,000" warranties, which are laughable if you read the fine print. If lightning actually hits your house, as has been said, the organ is the least of your worries, but short of that, a hit on a nearby power pole could produce a spike that kills your organ, even if it doesn't damage less exotic electronic devices in the house. Getting one replaced is a hassle, and you could have a sizable deductible to pay.

At home I'm not inclined to go around the house unplugging things when a thunderstorm is imminent, not even a really bad one. Only once in all my years do I recall having electronics at home damaged -- a phone charger, a cable box, control panel of a kitchen appliance were all casualties in one awful storm some years back. I do unplug my laptop though on even rainy days, since that's quick and easy and would cause a lot of grief if it got hit.

My organ at home? Yes, I unplug it if there's a bad storm predicted, or if I'm going to be gone for more than a day, but I never did that until I got the Renaissance. I guess I value it a little more than I did older organs.

At church though, I always unplug the organ at the end of every service. For some reason, we have a history of organs damaged by lightning at this church. The old Galanti organ had been hit twice in its lifetime there, both times just zapping a few IC's. But I left the Allen MDS plugged in all the time UNTIL the year I found it dead on Palm Sunday morning following a storm earlier that week! That put the fear into me, and I've never failed to unplug it since then.

[voet]

This is good to know. I appreciate the collective wisdom on this topic. I would like to add a follow-up question to Tony's original. Are there any issues with using an extension cord with an electronic organ? I have heard that there can be issues using an extension cord with electronic devises.

[jbird604]

RE: Extension cords. Some things to be aware of:

(1) If your organ or other device has a 3-prong plug, be sure to use a three-wire extension cord with the same kind of plug and socket on both ends, and plug it into a proper 3-prong outlet. The ground pin is not just a decorative dingle, it actually grounds the shields of most modern electronic devices to the earth instead of just floating like in the old days. And today's manufacturers do NOT trust the neutral wire of the AC plug to be grounded and cannot use it for their earth ground. So keep the ground circuit intact. For safety and for cleaner sound.

(2) If your organ uses only a two-prong plug, check to see if the plug is polarized, with one blade bigger than the other. If it is, then you must use an extension cord that is also polarized. Be sure to push your organ plug into the extension cord the right way, and make sure the other end of it is plugged into the wall with the wide blade in the wide slot. If you fail to do this, your organ chassis could, under some conditions, carry a live shocking voltage!

(3) If you have hum in the audio when using an extension cord, and IF your plug is NOT polarized, you can try reversing the way the plug goes into the extension cord to see if that helps. It might or might not, but it's worth a try.

(4) If the extension cord is plugged into an outlet that is behind the organ console, get one that has a 90-degree plug so it won't be sticking out of the wall and possibly touching the back of the console. The movements and vibrations of the console could make for wear and tear and eventual intermittency in the AC connection.

(5) It should go without saying, but be sure to use an extension cord, of whatever type, that can carry the current your organ requires. The conductors should be at least #16 in size for most organs, but using #14 is even better. I would throw away any old-fashioned extension cords with #18 wire, as it is too small for safe usage with nearly any kind of modern equipment. (Or give it to a museum.)

[arie v]

Hi,

These days, many extention cords are crap. They may look well made, but cause trouble, such as bad or intermittent connections. Country of origin is usually China.

If you don't need an extension cord, don't use one.

I have had a pay visits to "fix" organs, only to find that a "new" extension cord was installed, and things didn't work right after that.

If you do need an extension cord, fabricate one yourself, with quality materials.

Just my experience.

AV

[samzer]

I would be interested in anyone's opinion on this question, but most especially any organ tech, like John. The question, which is debated constantly, is: In the event of a severe thunderstorm, is it better to unplug your organ, or leave it plugged into your surge protector device (assuming it is a good one, not a $7.95 hardware store type). The field, it seems to me, is always split about 50/50 on this question. Your ideas?

Tony

Tony,

From personal experience I don't believe that there is a device that can protect from a direct strike.
I only had hardware store type protectors and they made no difference whatever. Result of the strike was one fried Galanti, three TVs, one computer, one radio, one amp, and all LED lights. Having been present during the strike I can can only think of one descriptive term and that's "Awesome"! My choice---Unplug.

[cham-ed]

At a former church we lost our Allen to lighting. BUT it didn't come through the 120V line. The wiring for the antiphonal speakers went near the bell tower. And of course the tower got hit (and yes it had lighting rods). Some how the electricity managed to connect to the speaker wiring and back to the console. You could see the burn mark where the electricity jumped to the wiring. And the instrument didn't like high voltage coming into the output. So part of this is don't have speaker wires running near a lighting attracter, like a bell tower.

[Johnallen]

I think safer to unplug. Also be careful wherecyoubput speaker wires. I remember 12 years back lightning struck the metal curtain rail and the lead which was close to the railing got burnt

[KC9UDX]

Merely anecdotal, but on several occasions I witnessed the following: A nearby lightning strike that apparently induced current in contactor coils of five adjacent, similar industrial machines. The ones that were powered on were undamaged, but the ones that were disconnected from the mains suffered burnt-out coils, the same coils in each machine.

Also, it's not unusual for lightning to induce damaging current in distant but very long indoor computer network conductors. I assume that long speaker cables and even long audio patch cables are subject to the same.

[Leisesturm]

Interesting. I just started a new position at a church with a Rodgers Trillium 908. On the day of my audition I did not notice that anything unusual was done to start it. The audition was very rushed, however, and I was not given even 5 minutes to get acquainted with the instrument. Afterwards I asked for a separate appointment to spend some time with the instrument. On that day I found the organ powered off and it would not start for me. I checked the power cord and found the instrument indeed plugged into one of the dinkiest looking cheeso crapola I won't even call it a surge protector ever seen. If $7.99 it was probably a two pack. I was mortified. The surge protector shaped object was both powered off and unplugged. I don't know when last Portland, OR has seen lightning of any significance but these good folk aren't taking any chances. To be fair electric utility anomalies do happen from time to time. There is that.

Curious thing (John?). Once I got the power connected, the instrument still wouldn't start. The console would light up briefly but would power off as soon as I released the switch. It didn't matter how long I held the switch on. Only when in desperation because I had come a long way and was starting to think I was being set up, I held the power button for a crazy long time. Success. Had a fine time with the instrument after that. Went home and downloaded the .pdf owners manual for the instrument and it says that 2 seconds hold on the power switch should be adequate. I'm wondering if spending much of its time unplugged has allowed whatever batteries are onboard the instrument to be discharged. I'm wondering even when the instrument last had service. But most of all, now that this is my instrument to curate ... in addition to getting a MUCH better surge protector for it. Am I going to unplug it after every service. I don't know. This is all very new information. I've been playing all manner of pipe and electronic organs all over the country. Even in the MidWest where some crazy lightning storms would roll through and NEVER gave a thought to the safety of the organ and more importantly NEVER had one get hurt as a result of my ignorance. Hmmmmm. Things that make you go hmmmm.

[rjsilva]

Does anyone know the percentage of electronic devices which are damaged from surges? (Not lightning.) I’m not meaning to discount anything, but I’ve never had an electronic device become damaged from surges and I’m not exactly an owner of fine surge protectors, and I often don’t use them. I recently bought a decent Furman for my home stereo after probably 15+ years of never using one with it. My organ has a cheapo. Most of the times I’ve used one it’s because I’ve needed more than a few plugs :) Maybe I should take it more seriously.

[jbird604]

RE: Leaving certain organs plugged in

For some reason, buyers of Rodgers Masterpiece organs were told NOT to unplug them. The dealer here always provided a big high capacity battery backup ("UPS") with them so even if the power went out the organ would remain alive. Not sure of the rationale, perhaps someone can enlighten...

Trillium models are a different story and shouldn't require an always on power connection, since they don't have the software in some kind of RAM, as Masterpiece does. The 908 should power up quickly, and could have a cpu problem causing the trouble you describe.

[Melos Antropon]

Many thanks to all that replied. I have seen "strange" things too, during a thunderstorm. A very close lightning strike to the house seem to generate enough of a powerful static field to wipe out some devices - but not others, right next to them. However, with careful thought, I do not remember anything in my experience being destroyed if it was unplugged. I have the word of a Rodgers tech that it can happen even if the instrument is unplugged, but he feels that unplugging is the best bet, and the majority opinion here seems to match that. So from henceforth, that is what I'm going to do, too.

Tony