Grounding Question - eviltoast

I recently had a lighting strike and lost about $1000 worth of equipment. I’d like to reduce the chance of that happening again so I’m looking for advice.

I have a UDM in my house, with a 125 foot run underground in conduit to my barn. In the barn, I have a POE switch that feeds 10 cameras and an Ubiquiti AP. I’d like to add a ground somewhere. I just purchased a surge protector with ethernet for the barn, since the switch is currently plugged in directly to an outlet and should be protected anyway. I also bought this from APC for my equipment in the house. I was going to install that between my UDM and POE switch in the house, then ground it to an outlet.

I’m reading so much information about how to go about this. My barn is powered with 220v from my house, so 4 wires go to the barn H/H/N/G. the ground on the barn is the same ground as the house. If I use both devices can that create a ground loop in the event of a surge? I’m also reading that I can use the APC at any point on my network to provide protection. Is this correct?

Please don’t suggest fiber runs, as the cable is already run and I don’t plan on redoing it. Thank you all in advance.

  • Thesonomakid@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    If this is your recommendation, it would help the OP if you specified a good quality non-conductive fiber optic cable. There are conductive fiber optics cables in this world, and it is required that they be bonded. Thats why NEC §770.100 was written.

    Personally, because I’ve dealt with a lot of rodent damage in my career, I’d use an armored (conductive) cable for an underground run as rodents will chew through conduit. Armored fiber optics cable is designed for exactly these type of situations, and must be bonded.