Minimize Your Risk of Damage from Lightning Storms

Lightning from storms can pose threats to your electrical equipment, including your scoreboards, controllers, and other control room equipment. It is important to take precautions in order to protect your equipment and minimize the risk of damage from storms, to keep your scoreboards and controllers in proper working order.

Damage from lightning strikes can occur in two different ways, direct strikes and power surges. A direct strike by lightning is likely to damage electrical equipment as well as even non-electrical components. While direct strikes are rare, there is little that can be done to avoid damage of this nature. The most common cause of damage to electronics is from nearby lightning strikes. In this case, the sudden surge in energy from the lightning strike is transferred into the power and signal lines of electrical equipment.

Circuits designed to read low voltage data signals, such as those found on scoreboards, computers, and household devices, can be sensitive to high voltage surges leaving them susceptible to damage from lightning strikes and power surges. With 85 years of experience, we leverage our experience to design products with numerous layers of protection to withstand powerful surges and keep you in the game.

One method of protection found in our products utilizes a concept called Galvanic Isolation, which protects the electronics from incoming power surges. A great deal of care is taken in the design and manufacturing of the equipment to ensure that the surges of energy cannot jump from the “surge side” to the “isolated side” within the equipment by utilizing various intricate electrical insulators. Nevco’s quality of design ensures that your scoring equipment will be as durable as possible when the next electrical storm comes rolling through, giving you piece of mind and reliability that you can count on come game-day.

To ensure your equipment remains safe during electrical storms, power off, disconnect your controller and store it in the carrying case. Additionally, to reduce damage it is also recommended to power off all control room equipment and unplug it from the wall.

Damage from lightning, high winds, hail, flooding, and vandalism are often covered by insurance. Be sure to document how and when the damage occurred, take photos, and contact the Nevco Service Department for repair assessment and cost estimates.

To contact the Nevco Service Department call 1-800-851-4040 and select option two. We have service technicians available from 7 am – 5pm Central Time, Monday through Friday.