Grounding telecommunication lines?

NailbunnyPD

We suffered a loss at work due to an electrical surge coming in over our telco lines, including cable, T1 and POTS lines. We lost a bit of equipment, and so I would like to prevent this from happening again.

What can I use to ground these connections so that our equipment doesn't get fried again? All but the cable are running over copper through 66 blocks.

DHS Odium

I've seen ports for phone lines, ethernet lines, and regular cable lines on higher end surge protectors.

wunderbar

DHS Odium wrote: »

I've seen ports for phone lines, ethernet lines, and regular cable lines on higher end surge protectors.

Yea, this.

darkgrue

There are quite a few companies that sell surge protectors specifically for this purpose - there's a lot of better-specced equipment you can get than what's at the store.

The more industrial-grade parts you can get are specific to particular line types, rather than power strips with just extra plugs. Lot of the "premium" surge protectors use pretty wimpy surge parts (or don't protect all the signal lines), so getting an application-specific product that uses gas-discharge tube designs (here's an example of one such product, here's another) instead of MOVs you might consider worth it. Prices vary, and although there's a good amount of "pixie dust" products out there you have to be wary of, you also generally get what you pay for (that is, if it's cheap in cost, it's probably got cheap parts too).

Surge protectors specifically made for mounting on 66-blocks are not uncommon, but you are unlikely to find them at your local hardware store. I've never used that sort of product, so I can't really recommend one, but there's quite a few manufacturers of them out there.

Keep in mind that surge protectors, regardless of the design, always let some part of the surge through. That could amount to hundreds of volts for some (short) amount of time - enough to kill a lot of equipment. A surge protector's job is to prevent equipment fires, not necessarily protect the equipment from fatal damage.

ZackSchilling

If you expect to collect on a protector's replacement guarantee, make absolutely certain EVERYTHING runs through the protector and that fact is documented.

We're talking not a single power brick connected to a USB device on a regular outlet. And make sure you don't overload it or the company will also weasel out of the claim.