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South Georgia | Does anyone have a favorite lightning arrester? We used to install Delta LA-603 277/480 volt lighning arrestors to protect our irrigation equimpemt. Our irrigation dealer stopped selling that brand and now sells Intermatic AG6503L3 lightning arrestors. These are very fancy, as they have a green LED that stays illuminated to let you know that the arrestor is working properly. It seems that on our farm the arresters typically stay in service 1-2 years before the LED goes out. Out of curiosity, and because the arresters cost $125 each, I cut one open to see what the little green LED is really all about.
It turns out, each phase is internally protected by a thermal fuse. When the fuse “operates” or melts, the contacts separate and a little arc-extinguishing flap closes between the open contacts. This is a feature to prevent an arrester that has failed to a short from exploding. When the extinguishing flap shuts, it operates a small switch that turns off the green LED, indicating that one or more phases is no longer protected.
While anyone who has ever had a lightning arrestor explode on them can certainly appreciate this “non-exploding” feature, it is getting costly to replace these arresters so frequently. I was curious what others were using...
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Irrigation lightning Arrester
