I have a job with the following:
Tivo Mini >> KD-CATHD250LITE TX >> Cat6 >> KD-CATHD250LITE RX >> SunBrite Tv

Tivo Mini >> KD-CATHD250LITE TX >> Cat6 >> KD-CATHD250LITE RX >> SunBrite Tv

Tivo Mini >> KD-X200POHK TX >> Cat6 >> KD-X200POHK RX >> Sunbrite TV

Tivo Mini >> MuxLab 500054 (Component Video & IR Balun) >> Cat6 >> Panamax MOD-CAT5 >> 500054 >> Sunbrite TV

EVERY time there is a storm with lightning, all of the HDMI baluns stop working and the panamax mod-cat5 blows out.

All of these TVs are outside and receiving electric from the same sub panel. All of the TVs have Panamax Surge Outlets inline.

I have other TVs/baluns inside the house (not running through this subpanel) that function normally after lightning storms.

I am assuming the problem is related to SOMETHING wired incorrectly within the subpanel, but haven't been able to come up with what.

Any suggestions on what to look for are greatly appreciated! The ONLY thing these TVs have in common is sharing electric from the same panel - they even have their own breakers, not that it would make too much of a difference.

Where is source? Main house?

Probably ground for the sub panel is not correct. Check your voltage from ground to neutral.

Are the cat6's shielded? Are they run next to the electrical lines? I've seen this before in older homes where there is too much build up of EMI and the balun craps out. In most cases it was using old, unshielded cat5e from the previous component baluns, and required an electrician to get to the bottom of.

I have to make some assumptions here:
The TiVo Mini's & the Sunbrite TVs still worked each time, as you only said the extenders stop working.
If that is true, guess what... The surge is NOT coming over the electric lines and has nothing to do with power.
What you also didn't say in your post is how long the cat6 runs are. I'm going to take a guess they are 50 feet or more.

You are experiencing induced voltage into the cat6, from nearby strikes. This can be from cloud-to-ground or cloud-to-cloud strikes. Any strike within 1/2 mile could be enough to kill the extenders.

If the lighting in the area is that severe, you can try using shielded cat6 with proper grounding.
Or the best solution is to use fiber over HDMI - that will get expensive compared to what you are using now. But it is what it is - customer doesn't have normal circumstances, it is unreasonable to think it can be done at the same price.

Is there a 2nd ground rod at the house for anything? Surges travel from one rod to the other (over LV or line voltage cables), if at different potentials (not bonded to each other).

TV at one potential, sat dish at another, and electricity flows from one to the other.

thecapnredfish, Yes the source is the main house.

vwpower44, Yes I was thinking something like this as it appears to be trying to ground through my LV stuff into a ground in the house (and I assume succeeding)

Wozman, no nothing is shielded. While they are close to electric in some cases, they're always running in their own conduit, so they're at least a few inches apart when they're at their closest, separated by PVC conduit. I replaced the cat5e with cat6 outdoor cable even though it is inside conduit just in case something was wrong with the old cable. Going with shielded would be a pain, but I am considering it. Just afraid it also won't help since it appears the surge is not being induced.

Brad Humphrey, Before I added the MOD-CAT5 into the mix on the one TV with the component baluns, the surge was taking out the main board on the TV AND the Fios box inside (before we switched to Tivo and active HDMI Baluns.)
My question is, if this is induced then why is it limited ONLY to the components powered from the sub panel? Why is nothing else being affected? We just added a new TV which has NO cat6 cable even close to any high voltage lines. The run for that is less than 50ft.

Neurorad, havent looked into that yet. I'm planning on getting into the panel(s) and seeing whats going on next week. I am meeting the client's electrician there to hopefully come up with a solution. I'd prefer not to have to rerun shielded cat6 without knowing for sure its going to fix the problem. I have a suspicion that the spike isnt being induced into the cat6...

Hmm......
When you get a chance please give me a call, our SP2 HDMI in line surge protector might help.

You are ready to start learning how protection works and even why plug-in protectors can make damage easier. This will be difficult to unlearn so many lies and myths that promote near zero and ineffective protectors.

A surge is a connection from a cloud (some three miles up) to earthborne charges (some four miles distant). The electric circuit is down from a cloud and four miles through earth. Damage traceable to a path that is all but invited to pass through your appliances - destructively.

Protection was always about connecting to earth BEFORE a surge can enter a building. You do not have that. Panamax will say anything to not discuss this. A protector is only as effective as its earth ground. Wall receptacle safety ground is not earth ground. Panamax does not even claim to protect from typically destructive surges. See numbers in its specifications.

Any wire in any incoming cable must connect to single point earth ground before entering a building. For example, TV cable and satellite dish have best protection provided by a hardwire connected from that cable direct to earth. Then a surge is not entering on those cables. Phone, electric, and ethernet cannot connect direct to earth. So a 'whole house' protector does what that hardwire does better. Connect low impedance (ie less than 3 meters) to single point earth ground ... before entering.

Protection is always about where hundreds of thousand of joules dissipate. Destructively inside or harmlessly outside.

Two structures means each must have it own single point earth ground. Otherwise a lightning strike to one building is direct strike incoming to electronics inside that other building.

Each damaged items was how that cloud connected to earth. Once that surge is inside, then it hunts for earth ground via appliances. Many have damage on an outgoing path. Then mistakenly assume that was an incoming path. Most common incoming is a direct strike to AC wires far down a street. Incoming on AC electric. Outgoing to earth maybe via ethernet and electronics in another building. Either way, damage traceable to a surge all but invited inside. Because every wire did not first connect to single point earth ground BEFORE entering. Connected low impedance (ie less than 10 feet) directly via a hardwire or otherwise via a 'whole house' protector.

More numbers apply once we first define what already exists, how it enters, and other relevant facts. Bottom line: protection is always about where hundreds of thousands of joules dissipate. A protector is only as effective as its earth ground.

westom,
given proper grounding at each entry point, would it also be of help to add a hefty ground wire from the sources to the TVs? This would be of lower impedance than anything on the unshielded CAT, and also of lower impedance than shielded CAT, and should promote the flow of surges away from the video path.

I'm reminded of a cassette player made by a company I worked for in the 80s. It had a three wire cord, and there was hum when it was used with other three-wire devices. An engineer solved this by adding a 3.3 ohm resistor in the ground path of the audio line outputs. This forced the ground currents to go through the power ground rather than on the grounds of the active circuitry. That's the opposite of what I'm advocating here.

Ernie,

At the instant of a direct strike, lots of energy is involved and there could be huge voltage drops between nearby ground rods. This is why bonding is required.

Yes, I've used the resistor trick too, but a hum inducing ground loop is in a different league. The strike has already traveled a few miles, ionizing the air in its path. That 3.3 Ohms is insignificant and could be vaporized or simply jumped across if it is in the strike's path. Actually, the 3.3 Ohms will likely decrease the effectiveness of the shield with respect to shielding the signal path from the rather intense electric field of the strike.

Confused are impedance and resistance. Microamp low frequency current is confused with a many amp high frequency current. Earth ground is confused with safety ground.

Does not matter how thick a wire is. Thicker mostly lowers resistance. Shorter mostly lowers impedance. A number '3 meters' was misunderstood or ignored.

Earthing a TV only makes that TV a better conductor to earth. Earth a surge; not its victim. Why encourage a surge to find earth destructively through a TV? BTW, safety codes state that appliances must be safety grounded; not earth grounded.

Reread what was posted - multiple times. What would a thick wire do to a current that goes from cloud above to earthborne charges some four miles distant? How does making a TV a better connection from cloud to earthed charges protect a TV? Protection is about that current not being inside. Spend more time and money comprehending and implementing that solution.

That 3.3 ohm resistor was about microamp currents and single digit volts (at most). I suspect his resistor was 1000 times larger. What would a resistor or no resistor do for a transient that is tens or thousands of amps and hundreds or thousands of volts? Never ignore numbers.

More numbers apply. Lightning typically can be 20,000 amps. So a minimal 'whole house' protector is 50,000 amps. Previous post only introduced what was necessary. Expecting you to ask questions that focus on each solution component. If a 'whole house' protector is necessary, well, obviously numbers were not yet provided to define that. Always have numbers.

Define proper grounding. Per code? Or doing what exceeds code? Code only calls for earthing one wire. Surge protection is about earthing all wires. Your questions should focus there. Expression was "single point earth ground". Another summarized same with 'bonding'. That is an art. Lower impedance connecting a surge to earth is critical. Increased distance between protector and appliances increases impedance - increases protection. And yes, this is worded so that you will have to reread it a few times to not be confused.

Your questions about what was not discussed implies you did not first grasp what was posted. Reread it many times. That a 'whole house' protector was not defined with numbers - that should have raised relevant questions. Additional protection is discussed only after fundamentals are understood and implemented. You did not even understand proper earthing of one wire (as required by code) verses earthing of all three AC wires and all other incoming wires (as required for surge protection).

OPs problem is more complex. He has two buildings. Both must have their own single point earth ground and all interconnecting wires properly earthed at both ends. Not earthed as defined by safety codes. Earthed as in exceeding what code demands.

Before pulling CAT5/6 that is shielded. Make sure that at least one of the connected devices has the ability to ground that shielded cable. Other wise it would be time and money wasted.

Also out of curiosity, can you remove the cover for the sub panel? Just to make sure that the Grounding and Grounded(neutral) rods are NOT connected.

Only the main panel shall the Grounding and Grounded rods be allowed to be connected. And by main panel, I mean the one that has the main breaker in it. If the main breaker is, say outside, next to the meter. Then that's the only panel that is allowed to have them connected.

KOT

How often does this happen?
How far is the affected TV from nearest outlet that's tied to main panel?
Have you tried running temp extension cord to main panel's outlet to see if that changes things? This might not help if the distance is too great.

Ernie

Your 3.3 Ohm resistor attempted to manage a signal ground loop by limiting current in the shield, which will reduce the magnetic field in the shield, which reduces the chassis potential offset related noises induced into the central wire.

With our lightning strike we are dealing with orders of magnitude more energy and, rather than annoying noises, complete destruction is the risk for poor management of the "ground loop".

A direct strike establishes a conductive path through the ionized air channel. In addition there is a nearby EMP. In this property we have a somewhat large "antenna" to pick up the EMP. Even if lightning related transients are properly managed at the service entrance (for all services), if there is enough wire inside that perimeter, induced voltages can still be an issue.

If this house is in a known "lightning alley" it would pay to hire a lightning consultant to evaluate the situation. Some areas are so bad that one needs the full lightning arrester treatment and internal defenses against the EMP.

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A nice advantage of FIOS is that there is no metal path to the house. For regular CATV and Satellite in high risk areas I like to use gas discharge protection such as

[Link: l-com.com]

I recommend hiding these from the cable company because they tend to remove anything that they don't recognize. At the service entrance I'll use a more standard looking arrester block that the electrician will recognize and respect and (hopefully) the cable guy will recognize and leave alone, but is probably too busy to install on his own (if he even carries one on the truck).

At a recent installation (with a swimming pool) in a "lightning alley" any builder who knows what he is doing installs very serious lightning arresters and whole house electrical protection, the building inspectors are anal about this too, but the cable guy just installed his MOCA filter on the pole, F-59 barrel to the house wiring and split. We anticipated this and already had our ground bond in place.